124 TRUE RICHES; OR,

 

in agreement with Mrs. Jasper’s assertion. He had
left town on the previous day.

‘CWhere has he gone?” he inquired.

“> Reading, I believe,” was the answer.

“Will he return soon ?”’

‘Not for several days, I believe.”

With a heavy heart, Claire bent his way home-
ward. He cherished a faint hope that Fanny might
have returned. The hope was vain. Here he lin-
gered but a short time. His next step was to give
information to the police, and to furnish for all the
morning papers an advertisement, detailing the cir-
cumstances attendant on the child’s abduction. This
done, he again returned home, to console, the best
he could, his afflicted wife, and to wait the develop-
ments of the succeeding day.

Utterly fruitless were all the means used by
Claire to gain intelligence of the missing child.
Two days went by, yet not the least clue to the
mystery of her absence had been found. There
was no response to the newspaper advertisements ;
and the police confessed themselves entirely at
fault.

Exhausted by sleepless anxiety, broken in spirit
by this distressing afiliction, and almost despairing
in regard to the absent one, Mr. and Mrs. Claire
were seated alone, about an hour after dark on the
evening of the third day, when the noise of rum-
bling wheels ceased before their door. Each bent
an ear, involuntarily, to listen, and each started with
an exclamation, as the bellrang with a sudden jerk.
Almost simultaneously, the noise of wheels was
again heard, and a carriage rolled rapidly away.