last was discovered. The man had a sister whose whereabouts was made
out; and she consented to receive the child--on condition that the
bairn should not come to her empty-handed. In order to get rid of
this burden, Mr. Wainwright with great difficulty made up thirty
pounds.

And then it was discovered that the man's name was not Talbot. What
it was did not become known in Dorsetshire, for the poor wife
resumed her maiden name--with very little right to do so, as her
kind neighbours observed--till fortune so kindly gave her the
privilege of bearing another honourably before the world.

And then other inquiries, and almost endless search was made with
reference to that miscreant--not quite immediately--for at the
moment of the blow such search seemed to be but of little use; but
after some months, when the first stupor arising from their grief
had passed away, and when they once more began to find that the
fields were still green, and the sun warm, and that God's goodness
was not at an end.

And the search was made not so much with reference to him as to his
fate, for tidings had reached the parsonage that he was no more. The
period was that in which Paris was occupied by the allied forces,
when our general, the Duke of Wellington, was paramount in the
French capital, and the Tuileries and Champs Elysees were swarming
with Englishmen.

Report at the time was brought home that the soidisant Talbot,
fighting his battles under the name of Chichester, had been seen and
noted in the gambling-houses of Paris; that he had been forcibly