186 TRUE RICHES; OR,

 

Fanny, and let Jasper know, in a day or two, the
result.

Now came a new trial for Claire and his wife.
They had taken Fanny, when only four years of
age, and taken her so entirely into their home and
affections, that she had almost from the first seemed
to them as one of their own children. In a brief
time the earlier memories of the child faded. The
past was absorbed in the present, and she loved as
parents none other than those she called by the ten-
der names of “father” and “mother.” The children
with whom she grew up she knew only as her bro-
thers and sisters. This thorough adoption and in-
corporation of the child into their family was not,
in any sense, the work of design on the part of
Claire and his wife. But they saw, in the beginning,
no reason to check the natural tendency thereto.
When little Fanny, of her own accord, addressed
them, soon after her virtual adoption, as “ father’’
and “mother,” they accepted the child's own inter-
pretation of their relative positions, and took her
from that moment more entirely into their hearts.

And so Fanny Elder grew up to womanhood, in
the full belief that she wasthe child of Mr. and Mrs.
Claire. The new trial through which this excellent
couple were now to pass, the reader can easily ima-
gine. The time had come when Fanny must know
the real truth in regard to herself—must be told that
she had no natural claim upon the love of those
whose love she prized above all things.

It seemed cruel to take away the conscious right
to love and be loved, which had so long blessed her.
And yet the truth must now be made known, and