uty.

But the brightest blaze of internal sunshine--the most effulgent and
dazzling beams of light were shed forth in the lowly hut of Jacky's
particular friend. Old Moggy did _not_ die after all! To the total
discomfiture of the parish doctor, and to the reflected discredit of the
medical profession generally, that obstinate old creature got well in
spite of the emphatic assurances of her medical adviser that recovery
was impossible. The doctor happened to be a misanthrope. He was not
aware that in the _Materia Medica_ of Nature's laboratory there is a
substance called "joy," which sometimes effects a cure when all else
fails--or, if he did know of this medicine, he probably regarded it as a
quack nostrum.

At all events this substance cured old Moggy, as Willie said, "in less
than no time." She took such deep draughts of it, that she quite
surprised her old friends. So did Willie himself. In fact, these two
absolutely took to tippling together on this medicine. More than that,
Jacky joined them, and seemed to imbibe a good deal--chiefly through his
eyes, which were always very wide open and watchful when he was in the
old hut. He drank to them only with his eyes and ears, and could not be
induced to enter into conversation much farther than to the extent of
yes and no. Not that he was shy--by _no_ means! The truth was that
Jacky was being opened up--mentally. The new medicine was exercising an
unconscious but powerful influence on his sagacious spirit. In addition
to that he was fascinated by Willie--for the matter of that, so was old
Moggy--for did not that small sailor-boy sing, and laugh, and talk to
them for hours about sights and scenes of foreign travel, of which
neither of them had dreamed before? Of course he did, and caused both
of them to stare with eyes and mouths quite motionless for half-hours at
a time, and then roused them up with a joke that made Jacky laugh till
he cried, and made Moggy, who was always crying more or less, laugh till
she couldn't cry! Yes, there was very brilliant sunshine in the hut
during that dismal season of rain--there was the sunshine of human love
and sympathy, and Flora was the means of introducing and mingling with
it sunshine of a still brighter and a holier nature, which, while it
intensified the other, rendered it also permanent.

At last the end of the Sudberrys' rustication arrived; the last day of
their sojourn dawned. It happened to be bright and beau