The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair / Their Observations and Triumphs

by C. M. Stevens

"I don't see, my boy, just how that could be," and the gentleman seemed somewhat suspicious of their grandfather.

"I don't, nuther," blurted Johnny.

"Come in. I will send for Mr. Warner and see what he can do for you."

They followed him into the room, and he motioned them to take seats. Then he went out and sent some one up-stairs for Mr. Warner.

"Fanny, my little girl—my lost children!"

The room was richly furnished, but had an air of negligence about it that betokened the want of an interested woman's taste and care. They could hear voices now and then coming from some distant part of the house, but they sounded more like the hilarious gaiety of servants than of persons having such a cultured place for a home. From the tapestries on the walls to the piano and the great case full of books, everything was arranged for the convenience of the one rather than for the taste of the many. It was the most pleasing home, where money was lavishly spent, that she had ever been in, and perhaps she is not to be blamed that for a moment she was carried away by her surroundings, and the longing came over her to be so happily situated as this. Seeing a life-size painting of a woman placed on a high frame near a desk, she went over to look at it. There was something so lifelike and natural, and even familiar, about the picture that she still further forgot how she came to be there. She did not hear Mr. Sterling as he re-entered the room, but he came up to her, and as she stepped aside the light fell full upon her face almost on a level with the picture in the frame. A startled expression came over the face of Mr. Sterling, which deepened into an amazement. His face grew white, and he looked at her and then at the picture, and then from the picture to her.

The light of some quick intuition spread over her face, and she thrust her hand into her cape pocket and drew out a small gold locket, which she opened and looked at intently, and then from the face of the man to the face of the woman. Mr. Sterling saw the locket.

"What are you looking at, child?" he almost shrieked.