André was called next. He had been employed as an interpreter in the hospital in the Rue Lacépède. He had frequently seen the child whose name was entered on the books of the establishment as Marguerite Poulebah. He was informed that her parents had died, and that she had no friends to whom she could be sent. He became very much interested in her, and when something was said about taking her to an orphan asylum, he had invited her to go home with him. He kept her there a few days, and became so much attached to her that he was not willing to give her up. His landlady took care of her till he embarked for America, where he soon found employment as a barber and had ever since retained her. He identified the locket as the one worn by the child when he took her from the hospital. He confessed that he had done wrong in not using greater efforts to find the friends of the child; but they were so much attached to each other that a separation would have been insupportable to either.
André finished his direct statement, and the counsel for the plaintiff immediately opened upon him so fiercely that Fitz began to feel that the day was not wholly lost.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE RICH MAN'S DAUGHTER.
"Where were you born, Mr. Maggimore?" asked the Wittleworth lawyer.
"In London," replied André.
"Are you a Frenchman?"
"My father was Italian, my mother French."
"Did you ever learn the barber's trade, or did you pick it up yourself?"