She always believed that I had been stolen.

She said that I could tell my name, 'Mabel Isabel Allison,' and that I would be three years old in November, but that I couldn't tell where I lived.

Whenever they asked me I cried and said I didn't know.

She wanted to save my clothes for me, thinking that by them I might some day find my parents, but the matron took them away from her, all but three little gold baby pins marked 'M.I.A.' She hid them away from the matron.

When she heard I was to go with Miss Brant, she kissed me, and gave them to me.