Connecticut western news., 1922-08-31

belong? Who was he? Who was the man who had brought him there? Had the money ceased coming because the person who sent it was dead? In that case, connection of Alan with the place where he belonged was per, manently broken. Or would some other communication from that source reach him some time-if not money, then something else? Would he be sent for some day?
 Externally, Alan's learning the little that was known about himself made no change in his way of living; he went to the town school, which con- bined grammar and high schools under one roof and, as he grew older, he clerked in one of the town stores during vacations and in the evenings. Alan always carried his money home as part payment of those arrears which had mounted up against him since the letters ceased coming. At seventeen, having finished high school, he was clerking officially in Merrfll's general store, when the next letter came.
 It was addressed this time not to papa, but to Alan Conrad. He seized 1t, tore 1t open, and a bank draft for fifteen hundred dollars fell out. There was no letter with the enclosure, no word of communication just the draft to the order of Alan Conrad. Alan wrote the Chicago bank by which the draft had been issued; their reply showed that the draft had been pur- chased with currency, so there was no record of the identity of the person who had sent it. More than that amount was due for arrears for the seven years during which no money was sent, even when the total which Alan had earned was deducted. So Alan merely endorsed the draft over to 'father'; and that fall Jim, Alan's foster brother, went to college. But, when Jim discovered that it not only was possible but planned at the uni versity for a boy to work his way through, Alan went also.
 Four wonderful years followed. In companionship with educated people; ideas and manners came to him which he could not have acquired at home; athletics strengthened and added bear ing to his muscular, well-formed body; his pleasant, strong young face acquired self-reliance and se1f-control. Life became filled with possibilities for himself which it had never held before.
 But on his day of graduation he had put away the enterprises he had planned and the dreams he dreamed and, conscious that his debt to father and mother still remained unpaid, he had returned to care for them; for fathers health had failed and Jim, who had opened a law office in Kansas City, could do nothing to help.
 No more money had followed the draft from Chicago and there had been no communication of any kind; but the receipt of so considerable a sum had revived and intensified all Alan's speculations about himself. The vague expectation of his childhood that sometime, in some way, he would be "sent for"; had grown during the last six years to a definite belief. And now-on the afternoon before the summons had come.
 This time, as he tore open the en- velope, he saw that beside a check, there was writing within-an uneven and nervous-looking but plainly legible communication in longhand. The letter made no explanation. It told him, rather than asked him, to come to Chicago, gave minute instructions for the journey, and advised him to telegraph when he started. The check was for a hundred dollars to pay his expenses. Check and letter were signed by a name completely strange to him.
 He was a distinctly attractive look ing lad, as he stood now on the station platform of the little town, while the eastbound train rumbled in, and he fingered in his pocket the letter from Chicago.
 On the train he took the letter from his pocket and for the dozenth time reread 1t. Was Covert a relative? Was he the man who had sent the remit tances when Alan was a little boy, and the one who later had sent the