A Son of Hagar

Six months later a handsome woman, still little more than a girl, yet with eyes of suffering, stepped up to the door of a house in Pimlico and knocked timidly.

"I wish to see Mrs. Drayton," she said, when the door was opened by an elderly person.

"Bless you, they're gone, Mrs. Drayton and her Husband."

"Gone!" said the young woman, "gone! What do you mean?"

"Why, gone--removed--shifted."

"Removed--shifted?" The idea seemed to struggle its slow way into her brain.

"In course--what else, when the big hotel fails and he loses his job? Rents can't be paid on nothing a week, and something to put in the mouth besides."

"Gone? Are you mad? Woman, think what you're saying. Gone where?"

"How do I know where? Mad, indeed! I'll not say but other folk look a mort madder nor ever I looked."

The young woman took her by the shoulder.

"Don't say that--don't say you don't know where they're gone. They've got my child, I tell you; my