I could not say that
it was all nonsense, because I did not know. Some twenty years ago, a
strange thing happened. I occupied the same residence as to-day. It
was near midnight, and snowing fiercely. I was looking over some
documents, when the footman came in and announced the presence of a
strange woman in the hall, who demanded to see me. The woman was young
and handsome, and in her arms she carried a child. Would I, for
humanity's sake, give a roof to the child till the morrow? The woman
said that she was looking for her relatives, but as yet had not found
them, and that the night was too cold for the child to be carried
around. She was a nurse. The child was not hers, but belonged to a
wealthy family of the south, who were to have arrived that day, but had
not. The thing seemed so irregular that I at once consented, thinking
to scan the papers the next day for an account of a lost or stolen
child. She also carried a box which contained, she said, the child's
identity. Now, as I am a living man, there was nothing in that box to
show who the child was; nothing but clothes, not a jewel or a trinket.
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