r patient tenderness,--by
the happiness they had hoped for, but which never came,--by the true
love they had borne to each other, and to little Tom, which knew so
little comfort, he knew that the recompense would come, that the end was
not yet She had shaken off the hunger and the pain, and had gone into
the world where only the love endured and found its comfort and its late
reward. There was such a world--somewhere. He put back the grayed hair
from the forehead; little Tom had such a brow,--broad, quiet,
melancholy.

"'I will go to them,'" he said, "'but they will not return to me!'"

* * * * *

Was it he that had been dead, and waked again? A strong hand lifting his
head; a warm face and breath at his cheek; a voice calling him as sweet
and cheerful as when first he heard it on the banks of the--little creek
in Canada? Then out of the reeling and groping of shadows and real
objects came a square bay-window opening on a sea-horizon of drifting
olive-gray clouds, the crackle and glow of a great wood-fire, a cheerful
breakfast-room, and some busy chatter about a night spent sleeping in
drenched clothes and night-fogs.

Lufflin's round, red face was the first real grip his senses took of it
all. The Captain was in his holiday suit of blue and brass, and pulled
down his jacket with a complacent twinkle in his eyes.

"Faith, ye'll suffer a sea-change in short order, Mounchere, if you
spend a few more nights dreaming by that window! Your very eyes look
rheumy and glazed already."

Jacobus got up, stunned and dull beyond his wont,--his eyes fixed, not
on the joking Captain, but on the anxious, wondering face upturned to
his. He touched the cheek, a little worn and haggard, may-be, but with
good, healthy blood reddening it,--felt the nervous hands,--then stooped
and solemnly kissed her lips.

They trembled a little; then she laughed.

"Did the sea send you dreams of me?"--trying to jest, but with some of
last night's trouble in her eyes.

"Not the sea,"--putting his hand to his head; "I think God sent them,
Lotty."

Lufflin, whose instincts were quick as a woman's, glanced at the two,
and then said something about its not being long enough after dawn to
begin the day, and that he would turn into his bunk for an hour or two,
and made his way down stairs. He turned into the kitchen instead, to
give Ann and the breakfast a warning look, and, for aught we know, put
his own shoulder to t