he cabins of the poor on the outskirts of Barnegat and Warehold.

"There goes Doctor John of Barnegat and his curly-head," the neighbors
would say; "when ye see one ye see t'other."

Newcomers in Barnegat and Warehold thought Archie was his son, and
would talk to the doctor about him:

"Fine lad you got, doctor--don't look a bit like you, but maybe he will
when he gets his growth." At which the doctor would laugh and pat the
boy's head.

During all these years Lucy's letters came but seldom. When they did
arrive, most of them were filled with elaborate excuses for her
prolonged stay. The money, she wrote, which Jane had sent her from time
to time was ample for her needs; she was making many valuable friends,
and she could not see how she could return until the following
spring--a spring which never came. In no one of them had she ever
answered Jane's letter about Bart's death, except to acknowledge its
receipt. Nor, strange to say, had she ever expressed any love for
Archie. Jane's letters were always filled with the child's doings; his
illnesses and recoveries; but whenever Lucy mentioned his name, which
was seldom, she invariably referred to him as "your little ward" or
"your baby," evidently intending to wipe that part of her life
completely out. Neither did she make any comment on the child's
christening--a ceremony which took place in the church, Pastor
Dellenbaugh officiating--except to write that perhaps one name was as
good as another, and that she hoped he would not disgrace it when he
grew up.

These things, however, made but little impression on Jane. She never
lost faith in her sister, and never gave up hope that one day they
would all three be reunited; how or where she could not tell or
foresee, but in some way by which Lucy would know and love her son for
himself alone, and the two live together ever after--his parentage
always a secret. When Lucy once looked into her boy's face she was
convinced she would love and cling to him. This was her constant prayer.

All these hopes were dashed to the ground by the receipt of a letter
from Lucy with a Geneva postmark. She had not written for months, and
Jane broke the seal with a murmur of delight, Martha leaning forward,
eager to hear the first word from her bairn. As she read Jane's face
grew suddenly pale.

"What is it?" Martha asked in a trembling voice.

For some minutes Jane sat staring into space, her hand pressed to her
side. She looked like one