“Geo’ge, your mudder wants you.”

 

Such were the words which aroused George Foster from a reverie one morning as he stood at the window of a villa on the coast of Kent, fastening his necktie and contemplating the sea.

 

“Nothing wrong, I hope,” said the middy, turning quickly round, and regarding with some anxiety the unusually solemn visage of Peter the Great.

 

“Wheder dere’s anyfing wrong or not, ’snot for me to say, massa, but I t’ink dere’s suffin’ up, for she seems in a carfuffle.”

 

“Tell her I shall be with her instantly.” Completing his toilet hastily, our hero repaired to his mother’s apartment, where he found her seated in dishabille with an open letter in her hand, and some excitement in her face.

 

“Is Laronde better this morning?” she asked as her son sat down on a sofa at the foot of her bed.

 

“I don’t know, mother—haven’t been to his room this morning. Why do you ask? Has anything happened?”

 

“I will tell you presently, but first let me know what success you have had in your search.”

 

“Nothing but failure,” said the middy, in a desponding tone. “If there had been anything good to tell you I would have come to your room last night despite the lateness of the hour. We were later than usual in arriving because a trace broke, and after that one of the horses cast a shoe.”

 

“Where did you make inquiries, George?”

 

“At the solicitors’ office, of course. It is through them that we obtained what we hoped would be a clue, and it is to them that poor Marie Laronde used to go to inquire whether there was any chance of her husband being released for a smaller sum than was at first demanded. They had heard of a dressmaker who employed a girl or woman named Laronde in the West End, so I hunted her up with rather sanguine expectations, but she turned out to be a girl of sixteen, dark instead of fair, and unmarried! But again I ask, mother, what news, for I see by your face that you have something to tell me. That is a letter from Minnie, is it not?”

 

“It is, George, and I am very hopeful that while you have been away on the wrong scent in the West End of London, Minnie has fallen, quite unexpectedly, on the right scent in one of the low quarters of Liverpool. You know that she has been nursing Aunt Jeanette there for more than a fortnight.”

 

“Yes, I know it only too well,” answered the middy. “It is too bad that Aunt Jeanette should take it into her head to get ill and send for Minnie just three weeks after my return from slavery!—But what do you mean by her having fallen on the right scent? Surely she has not found leisure and strength both to hunt and nurse at the same time!”

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