skin and the flannel robe had both been marked, but the marks had been carefully cut out. There, Remi, boy, that is all I can tell you. Don't worry, dear child, that you can't give us all the fine presents that you promised. Your cow that you bought with your savings is worth all the presents in the world to me. I am pleased to tell you that she's in good health and gives the same fine quantity of milk, so I am very comfortably off now, and I never look at her without thinking of you and your little friend Mattia. Let me have news of you sometimes, dear boy, you are so tender and affectionate, and I hope, now you have found your family, they will all love you as you deserve to be loved. I kiss you lovingly.
- "Your foster mother,
"Widow Barberin."
Dear Mother Barberin! she imagined that everybody must love me because she did!
"She's a fine woman," said Mattia; "very fine, she thought of me! Now let's see what Mr. Driscoll has to say."
"He might have forgotten the things."
"Does one forget the clothes that their child wears when it was kidnaped? Why, it's only through its clothes that they can find it."
"Wait until we hear what he says before we think anything."
It was not an easy thing for me to ask my father how I was dressed on the day that I was stolen. If
