made with Dr. Morgan, and had laid out tenpence on cakes, besides
contributing fruit from her garden for the first interview,--a
hospitality she did not think it fit to renew on subsequent occasions.
In return for this, she conceived she had purchased the right to Helen
bodily and spiritually, and nothing could exceed her indignation when she
rose one morning and found the child had gone. As it never had occurred
to her to ask Leonard's address, though she suspected Helen had gone to
him, she was at a loss what to do, and remained for twenty-four hours in
a state of inane depression. But then she began to miss the child so
much that her energies woke, and she persuaded herself that she was
actuated by the purest benevolence in trying to reclaim this poor
creature from the world into which Helen had thus rashly plunged.

Accordingly she put an advertisement into the "Times," to the following
effect, liberally imitated from one by which in former years she had
recovered a favourite Blenheim:--

TWO GUINEAS' REWARD.

STRAYED, from Ivy Cottage, Highgate, a Little Girl,--answers to the
name of Helen; with blue eyes and brown hair; white muslin frock,
and straw hat with blue ribbons. Whoever will bring the same to Ivy
Cottage, shall receive the above Reward.

N. B.---Nothing more will be offered.


Now it so happened that Mrs. Smedley had put an advertisement in the
"Times" on her own account, relative to a niece of hers who was coming
from the country, and for whom she desired to find a situation. So,