"Go? Why, of course not! Do you think I'd let that child go to perfect
strangers like that?--and such strangers! Why, Thomas, I should expect
that that nurse would have her all bottled and labeled with full
directions on the outside how to take her, by the time I'd got back
from Germany."

Again the doctor threw back his head and laughed heartily, but only
for a moment. His face changed perceptibly as he reached into his
pocket for a letter.

"I heard from Dr. Ames myself, this morning," he said, with an odd
something in his voice that brought a puzzled frown to his wife's
brow. "Suppose I read you my letter now."

"Dear Tom," he began. "Miss Della Wetherby has asked me to give her
and her sister a 'character,' which I am very glad to do. I have known
the Wetherby girls from babyhood. They come from a fine old family,
and are thoroughbred gentlewomen. You need not fear on that score.

"There were three sisters, Doris, Ruth, and Della. Doris married a man
named John Kent, much against the family's wishes. Kent came from good
stock, but was not much himself, I guess, and was certainly a very
eccentric, disagreeable man to deal with. He was bitterly angry at the
Wetherbys' attitude toward him, and there was little communication
between the families until the baby came. The Wetherbys worshiped the
little boy, James--'Jamie,' as they called him. Doris, the mother,
died when the boy was four years old, and the Wetherbys were making
every effort to get the father to give the child entirely up to them,
when suddenly Kent disappeared, taking the boy with him. He has never
been heard from since, though a world-wide search has been made.