features were absolutely devoid of any expression. An
instant later the mystery was explained. Holmes, with
a laugh, passed his hand behind the child's ear, a
mask peeled off from her countenance, and there was a
little coal black negress, with all her white teeth
flashing in amusement at our amazed faces. I burst
out laughing, out of sympathy with her merriment; but
Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand clutching his
throat.

"My God!" he cried. "What can be the meaning of
this?"

"I will tell you the meaning of it," cried the lady,
sweeping into the room with a proud, set face. "You
have forced me, against my own judgment, to tell you,
and now we must both make the best of it. My husband
died at Atlanta. My child survived."

"Your child?"

She drew a large silver locket from her bosom. "You
have never seen this open."

"I understood that it did not open."

She touched a spring, and the front hinged back.
There was a portrait within of a man strikingly
handsome and intelligent-looking, but bearing
unmistakable signs upon his features of his African