to the two little ones alike."

In this semi-hysterical style of writing, the poor man
unconsciously told me how cunningly and how cruelly his wife
was deceiving him.

I longed to exhibit that wicked woman in her true character--but
what could I do? She must have been so favored by circumstances
as to be able to account for her absence from home, without
exciting the slightest suspicion of the journey which she had
really taken, if I declared in my reply to the Minister's letter
that I had received her in my rooms, and if I repeated the
conversation that had taken place, what would the result be? She
would find an easy refuge in positive denial of the truth--and,
in that case, which of us would her infatuated husband believe?

The one part of the letter which I read with some satisfaction
was the end of it.

I was here informed that the Minister's plans for concealing
the parentage of his adopted daughter had proved to be entirely
successful. The members of the new domestic household believed
the two children to be infant-sisters. Neither was there any
danger of the adopted child being identified (as the oldest child
of the two) by consultation of the registers.

Before he left our town, the Minister had seen for himself that
no baptismal name had been added, after the birth of the daughter
of the murderess had been registered, and that no entry of
baptism existed in the registers kept in places of worship.