"Are your parents living?"
"Only my mother."
"And your father—has he been dead long?"
"He died before I was born, sir."
"Can it be that your father was John Allston?"
"That was his name, sir."
"Why, good gracious!" exclaimed the mayor, with a new interest, "I knew him. It was years ago, and we were never intimate, but I had a speaking acquaintance with him. Let me see, was there not something peculiar about the manner of his death? I remember hearing something said about it at the time, but it was so long ago that I cannot remember just what it was."
"People said, sir," replied Al, "and I guess they were right, that my father died of a broken heart."
"I remember now!" interrupted Mr. Anderson. "His child, your sister, was stolen. Her loss was such a blow to him that he only survived the shock a few months."
"Yes, sir; that is true."