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Three weary nights and two days had passed, when as
Mr. Legrange, bending over his wife's sofa, entreated her
to take the food and drink he had himself prepared for
her, a sharp peal at the bell, followed by a bounding step
upon the stair, startled them both.

“It is Tom, and he has news!” exclaimed Mrs. Legrange
in a low voice, as she pushed away the tray and rose to
her feet.

The door opened, and the young man entered, his tired
face glowing with hope and satisfaction. In his hand he
held a little bundle; and sitting down, with no more than a
word of greeting, he hastily untied it upon his knee.

“Aren't these her clothes?” asked he breathlessly, as
he held up by one sleeve a little sky-blue merino-dress, with
a torn lace undersleeve hanging from the shoulder, and in
the other hand a pair of dainty little boots of bronze cloth.

Mrs. Legrange, with a wild cry, darted forward, and,

grasping the pretty dress, buried her face in it, covering it
with kisses, while she cried, —

“Yes, yes! O Tom! where is she? Tell me quick, before
my poor heart breaks with joy!”

Mr. Burroughs remained silent. How could he say that
he knew as little as ever how to answer this appeal?

“Where did you get them, Tom?” asked Mr. Legrange
hurriedly.

“Billings found them in a pawn-broker's shop. You
know we gave all the detectives a list of the clothing, and
full description of the child. Billings has been all over the
city, examining at every pawn-broker's shop all the children's
clothes brought in since we lost her, you know” —

“Yes, yes! And when” —

“Last night he found this in a little out-of-the-way
place (I didn't stop to ask where), and, thinking they looked
like the right thing, brought them to me. I was asleep,
and the people stupidly would not wake me: so he waited;
and this morning, when I rose, there he was. I snatched
the bundle, and came right along with it. Now, of course,
they'll soon find who left them: only, unluckily, they wern't
pawned, but sold outright; so they didn't take the name;
but the man thinks it was an old woman who sold them to

him. He is in custody; and we will go down and hear the
examination, Paul.”

“Certainly, at once.” And Mr. Legrange nervously
buttoned his coat, and moved toward the door.

“It is to be at ten, and it is now half-past nine. I
suppose we had better go at once. Good-by, dear cousin
Fanny!” said Mr. Burroughs, looking sorrowfully at the
wan face upraised to his, as the poor mother replied, —

“Good-by, Tom! and oh, pray, do every thing, every
thing, that can be done! I cannot tell” —

She was unable to finish, and the two men hurried away
from the sight of a sorrow as yet without remedy.

The examination of the blear-eyed and stupid old pawn-broker
resulted in very little satisfaction. He believed
that it was a woman who had sold him the bundle of child's
clothing. He was not sure if it were an old or a young
woman, but rather thought it was an old woman. It might
have been a week ago that he bought them; it might have
been more, or it might have been less: he didn't set it down,
and couldn't say.

This was all; and, as nothing could be proved or even
suspected of him in connection with 'Toinette's disappearance,
he was discharged from custody, although warned to

hold himself in readiness to appear at any moment when
he should be summoned.

He had not yet, however, left the room, when one of the
audience, a policeman off duty, stepped forward, and, intimating
that he had something to say, was sworn, and went
on to tell how he had been leaning against a lamp-post at
the extreme of his beat, just resting a bit, in the edge of
evening before last, when he saw an old woman that they
call Mother Winch come up the street, carrying a bundle,
and leading a little girl. He knew she hadn't any child
of her own; and the child was dressed very poor; and
Mother Winch called her Judy or Biddy, or some Paddyname
or other; and maybe it was all right, and maybe it
wasn't. It could be worked up easy enough, he supposed.

So supposed the detective in whose hands the clew was
immediately placed; but when, an hour later, he descended
the steps into Mother Winch's cellar, he found that a keener
and a swifter messenger than himself had already called
the wretched old woman to account; and she lay across the
rusty old stove, quite dead, with a broken bottle of spirit
upon the floor beside her, and all the front of her body
shockingly burned. The coroner who was called to see her
decided that she had fallen across the stove, either in a fit,

or too much intoxicated to move, and had died unconscious
of her situation. She was buried by public charity, and
in her grave seemed hidden every hope of tracing the lost
child.

“She must have been carried from the city,” said the
detectives; and the search was extended into the country,
and to other towns and cities, although not neglected at
home.