pillow.

Mrs. Worth clasped her hands in eager longing as she whispered: "Oh,
Jeff, can we keep her? Can we?"

Jefferson Worth answered in his careful manner: "Did you look for
marks on her clothing?"

"There was nothing--not a letter even. And all that she can tell of
her name is Barba. I'm sure she means Barbara." As she answered,
Mrs. Worth searched her husband's face anxiously. Then she
exclaimed: "Oh you do want her; you do!" and added wistfully: "Of
course we must try to find her folks, but do you think it very
wrong, Jeff, to wish--to wish that we never do? I feel as though she
were sent to take the place of our own little girl. We need her so,
Jeff. I need her so--and you--you will need her, when--" There was a
day coming that the banker and his wife did not talk about. Since
the birth and death of their one child, Mrs. Worth had been a
hopeless invalid.

Several weeks passed and every effort to find little Barbara's
people was fruitless. Inquiry in Rubio City and San Felipe and
through the newspapers on the Coast brought no returns. The land in
those days was a land of strangers where people came and went with
little notice and were lost quickly in the ever-restless tide. It
was not at all strange that no one could identify an outfit of which
it was possible to tell only of a woman and child and one bay horse.
There were many outfits with a woman and child in the party and many
that had among the two, four, six, or more animals one bay horse.