On the fly-leaf was written
Jane Chetwynd.
From Papa,
New York, Christmas, 18—.
“‘Jane Chetwynd,’ that must be the mother. It can’t be the child, because the date is ten years ago. ‘New York.’ They’re from the North then; I thought they were. Hello! here’s a photograph.”
It was a group, a family group—the father, the mother, and the child; the father’s a bright, handsome, almost boyish face, the mother’s not pale and tear-stained, but fresh and winsome, with smiling lips and merry eyes, and the child, the little “Lady Jane,” clinging to her father’s neck, two years younger, perhaps, but the same lovely, golden-haired child.
The boy’s heart bounded with pleasure as he looked at the sweet little face that had such a fascination for him.
“I wish I could keep it,” he thought, “but it’s not mine, and I must try to return to it the owner. Poor woman! she will be miserable when she misses it. I’ll advertise it to-morrow, and through it I’m likely to find out all about them.”
Next morning some of the readers of the principal New Orleans journals noticed an odd little advertisement among the personals:
Found, “Daily Devotions”; bound in red russia-leather, silver clasp, with monogram, “J. C.” Address,
Blue Heron, P. O. Box 1121.
For more than a week this advertisement remained in the columns of the paper, but it was never answered, nor was the book ever claimed.