Yes, it is our Winnie, and she is now the wife of Capt.  Harry Grosvenor.  And is she happy in this her choice?  Ask her if she would exchange her brave husband for one of those superfine niceties, who suing for favor at her feet, had at the same time lined their vows of love and constancy with the yellow dust, which had they known the strong chest to have been at their backs, while in this humble posture, it were uncertain to which might have been made an apology,—­the fair lady or her dowry.

But what is the cause of that little commotion among sundry flowered blankets, juvenile counterpanes, etc., etc., which you have but this moment discovered in a neighboring niche?  Is it old Nep who has ensconced himself in this dainty little nest?  No, for you left him sleeping under the shade of the weeping willow.  Surely, those seven kits, with fourteen blue eyes, have not lived to this green old age!  Ah, the mystery is solved, by the presence of a tiny hand, which elevates itself above the little heap of whiteness, and a smiling baby face has contrived to work its way into the no less smiling sunlight, the which baby must not partake of too freely; consequently the owner of said property appears, to alleviate the difficulty, which is done by giving miss baby a toss into mid-air, and with a ringing laugh, not unlike those wild bursts of merriment which were wont to be heard reverberating through the halls of Santon Mansion.

Yes, it is Winnie’s child; and she tells you, while a more thoughtful look sits upon her countenance, that the name of the little one is “Natalie;” although she adds, “as earnestly as I love my child, I know there can never be another like her”—­and pointing to a portrait, draped in white, she presses her child more closely to her heart.

You look long and earnestly upon that countenance of the Madonna,—­the one face representing mother and child.  The portrait is the property of Clarence Delwood, he who is now known as ‘the lone man of the shore;’ and while you are yet gazing upon it, he enters, and pressing his lips to the canvas, he takes a bible from the case and reads.  You accidentally observe the fly-leaf, upon which is written,—­“To the Sea-flower, from her mother, on her second birthday;” and as he reads a smile lights up his countenance, for it is there written,—­“thou shalt labor unto the Lord,” and a more cheerful expression is his; for it is through his ready pen that the alms chest of the poor receives its liberal supplies.

Ere you depart, you inquire as to the fate of Mr. Sampson, learning that through his agency the widow Grosvenor has come in possession of a handsome fortune,—­the daughter’s gift to her mother,—­so that now she is enabled to make comfortable many a cheerless fireside, where poverty, through the loss of a husband and father, as he went down to do business on the great deep, had reigned.  Honest Mr. Sampson, after so many years spent upon the ocean, has concluded