A week passed in fruitless efforts to awaken any interest, or to create the slightest disposition to inquiry among Mr.B.'s old friends.

The story told by the young woman they considered as too improbable to bear upon its face the least appearance of truth.
"Why," was the unanswerable argument of many, "has nothing been heard of the matter since?
If that girl had really been Miss Ballantine, and that simple old man her father, do you think we should have heard no more on the subject?
The imposition was immediately detected, and the whole matter quashed at once." Failing to create any interest in the minds of those he had supposed would have been most eager to prosecute inquiry, but led on by desperate hope, Perkins had an advertisement inserted in all the city papers, asking the individuals who had presented themselves some eighteen months before as Mr.Ballantine and his daughter, to call upon him at his rooms in the hotel.

A week passed, but no one responded to the call.

He then tried to ascertain the names of the physicians who, it was said, had attended an old man for imbecility of mind, at the request of a daughter who seemed most deeply devoted to him.

In this he at length proved successful.
"I did attend such a case," was at last replied to his oft-repeated question.
"Then, my dear sir," said Perkins, in a deeply excited voice, "tell me where they are." "That, my young friend, is, really out of my power," returned the physician.