on his birth forgotten, doing honor to himself,
to her, and to the name he bore. In him, too, she sought refuge from
that other sorrow which was often greater than she could bear--the loss
of the closer companionship of Doctor John--a companionship which only
a wife's place could gain for her. The true mother-love--the love which
she had denied herself, a love which had been poured out upon Lucy
since her father's death--found its outlet, therefore, in little Archie.

Under Martha's watchful care the helpless infant grew to be a big,
roly-poly boy, never out of her arms when she could avoid it. At five
he had lost his golden curls and short skirts and strutted about in
knee-trousers. At seven he had begun to roam the streets, picking up
his acquaintances wherever he found them.

Chief among them was Tod Fogarty, the son of the fisherman, now a boy
of ten, big for his age and bubbling over with health and merriment,
and whose life Doctor John had saved when he was a baby. Tod had
brought a basket of fish to Yardley, and sneaking Meg, who was then
alive--he died the year after--had helped himself to part of the
contents, and the skirmish over its recovery had resulted in a
friendship which was to last the boys all their lives. The doctor
believed in Tod, and always spoke of his pluck and of his love for his
mother, qualities which Jane admired--but then technical class
distinctions never troubled Jane--every honest body was Jane's friend,
just as every honest body was Doctor John's.

The doctor loved Archie with the love of an older brother; not
altogether because he was Jane's ward, but for the boy's own
qualities--for his courage, for his laugh--particularly for his
buoyancy. Often, as he looked into the lad's eyes brimming with fun, he
would wish that he himself had been born with the same kind of
temperament. Then again the boy satisfied to a certain extent the
longing in his heart for home, wife, and child--a void which he knew
now would never be filled. Fate had decreed that he and the woman he
loved should live apart--with this he must be content. Not that his
disappointments had soured him; only that this ever-present sorrow had
added to the cares of his life, and in later years had taken much of
the spring and joyousness out of him. This drew him all the closer to
Archie, and the lad soon became his constant companion; sitting beside
him in his gig, waiting for him at the doors of the fishermen's huts,
or in t