"I was never sought," Clara continued, "and the good people who brought
me up gave me every care. Father and mother--I can never train my tongue
to call them anything else--were very good to me. When they adopted me
they were poor; he was a pharmacist with a small shop. Later on he moved
to Cincinnati, where he made and sold a popular 'patent' medicine and
amassed a fortune. Then I went to a fashionable school, was taught
French, and deportment, and dancing. Father Hohlfelder made some bad
investments, and lost most of his money. The patent medicine fell off in
popularity. A year or two ago we came to this city to live. Father
bought this block and opened the little drug store below. We moved into
the rooms upstairs. The business was poor, and I felt that I ought to do
something to earn money and help support the family. I could dance; we
had this hall, and it was not rented all the time, so I opened a
dancing-school."

"Tell me, child," said the other woman, with restrained eagerness, "what
were the things found upon you when you were taken from the river?"

"Yes," answered the girl, "I will. But I have not told you all my story,
for this is but the prelude. About a year ago a young doctor rented an
office in our block. We met each other, at first only now and then, and
afterwards oftener; and six months ago he told me that he loved me."

She paused, and sat with half opened lips and dreamy eyes, looking back
into the past six months.

"And the things found upon you"----

"Yes, I will show them to you when you have heard all my story. He
wanted to marry me, and has asked me every week since. I have told him