"I can. I will presently put into your hands a letter, written me by
my brother some months since, which explains the whole matter. To
save you suspense, however, I will recapitulate. Where were you
born?"

"In California."

"That is probably true. It was there that my brother found you."

"Found me?"

"Perhaps that is not the word. My brother and his wife were boarding
in Sacramento in the winter of 1859. In the same boarding house was
a widow, with a child of some months old. You were that child. Your
mother died suddenly, and it was ascertained that she left nothing.
Her child was, therefore, left destitute. It was a fine, promising
boy--give me credit for the compliment--and my brother, having no
children of his own, proposed to his wife to adopt it. She was fond
of children, and readily consented. No formalities were necessary,
for there was no one to claim you. You were at once taken in charge
by my brother and his wife, therefore, and very soon they came to
look upon you with as much affection as if you were their own child.
They wished you to consider them your real parents, and to you the
secret was never made known, nor was it known to the world. When my
brother returned to this State, three years after, not one of his
friends doubted that the little Hector was his own boy.

"When you were six years old your mother died--that is, my brother's
wife. All the more, perhaps, because he was left alone, my brother
became attached to you, and, I think, he came to love you as much as