she was away. She begged me to replace her at the Friendly Society
while she was gone. As her assistant was a capable young woman, and my
relations with every one were pleasant I was only too glad to consent.
She had always been so good to me.

She was gone a month.

On her return I noticed that she was distressed about something. I
taxed her with it. She said it was nothing she felt like talking
about. But one evening when Josephine had been sewing for me, after
she was gone, the Matron, who had been in my room, got up, and closed
the door after her.

"I've really got to tell you what is on my mind," she said. "And I am
sure that you will look on it as a confidence. You know the asylum
where I have been is not far from Utica, where Josephine went when she
was married. Well, one day, about a fortnight after I got there, I had
occasion to look up the record of a child in the books, and my
attention was attracted by a name the same as Josephine's. The
coincidence struck me, and I read the record that on a certain day,
which as near as I could calculate, must have been a year after
Josephine left, a person of her name, written down as a widow, a
member of the Orthodox Church, had adopted a male child a few months
old. I was interested. I did not suspect anything, but I asked the
assistant matron if she remembered the case. She did, clearly. She
said the woman was a dear little thing, who had come there shortly
before, a young widow, a seamstress. She was a lonely little thing,
and some one connected with the asylum had given her work, which she
had done so well that she soon had all she needed. She had been
employed in the asylum, and loved children as they did her. The child