in question was the son of a woman who had died at its birth, from the
shock of an accident which had killed the father. It took a fancy to
Josephine, and she wanted to adopt it. The committee took the matter
up. The clergyman spoke well of her, as did every one, and they all
decided that she was perfectly able to care for it. So she took the
child. All of a sudden, one day, Josephine went, as she had come.
There was no mystery about it. She told the clergyman that she was
homesick for her old friends, and had gone east, and would write, and
she always has.

"Of course I was puzzled. There was no doubt in my mind that it was
our little Josephine. Naturally I was discreet. Luckily. I spoke of
her to several people who remembered her, and they all called her
'dear little Josephine' just as we had. I talked of her with the
clergyman and his wife. I asked questions that were too natural to
rouse suspicions, when I told them that I knew her, that the baby was
the dearest and happiest child I knew, and what do you suppose I found
out, more by inference than facts?"

No need to ask me. Didn't I know?

Josephine had never been married. There had never been any "He." It
all seemed so natural. It did not shock me, as it had the Matron, and
I was glad she had told no one but me. Dear little Josephine! Sitting
there in the Association without family, with no friends but her
patrons, and those girls whose little romances went on about her! No
romances ever came her way. So she had made one all of her own. I
proved to the Matron easily that what she had discovered by accident
was not her affair, that to keep Josephine's secret was a virtue, and
not a sin. I was sure of that, for, as I watched her afterwards, I