got her a good place in Boston, and she was going to go and take little Harry.  We supposed it was all right.  Last Saturday she went, sir.  She was going to walk to the station, and the last seen of her she was trudging along the road, carrying the baby.  It hasn’t been thought of since.  But, sir, d’ye suppose she set that innocent child adrift in that old leaky dory to send him to his death?  I knew Maggie was no better than she should be, but I can’t believe she was as bad as that.”

“You must come over with me and see if you can identify the child,” I said.  “If he is Harry Martin I shall keep him.  My wife has been very lonely since our baby died, and she has taken a fancy to this little chap.”

When we reached my home old Abel recognized the child as Harry Martin.

He is with us still.  His baby hands led my dear wife back to health and happiness.  Other children have come to us, she loves them all dearly; but the boy who bears her dead son’s name is to her—­aye, and to me—­as dear as if she had given him birth.  He came from the sea, and at his coming the ghostly dream-child fled, nevermore to lure my wife away from me with its exciting cry.  Therefore I look upon him and love him as my first-born.

VI.  THE BROTHER WHO FAILED

The Monroe family were holding a Christmas reunion at the old Prince Edward Island homestead at White Sands.  It was the first time they had all been together under one roof since the death of their mother, thirty years before.  The idea of this Christmas reunion had originated with Edith Monroe the preceding spring, during her tedious convalescence from a bad attack of pneumonia among strangers in an American city, where she had not been able to fill her concert engagements, and had more spare time in which to feel the tug of old ties and the homesick longing for her own people than she had had for years.  As a result, when she recovered, she wrote to her second brother, James Monroe, who lived on the homestead; and the consequence was this gathering of the Monroes under the old roof-tree.  Ralph Monroe for once laid aside the cares of his railroads, and the deceitfulness of his millions, in Toronto and took the long-promised, long-deferred trip to the homeland.  Malcolm Monroe journeyed from the far western university of which he was president.  Edith came, flushed with the triumph of her latest and most successful concert tour.  Mrs. Woodburn, who had been Margaret Monroe, came from the Nova Scotia town where she lived a busy, happy life as the wife of a rising young lawyer.  James, prosperous and hearty, greeted them warmly at the old homestead whose fertile acres had well repaid his skillful management.