and waited bareheaded in the sunshine till all was ready, when he
stepped quietly ashore.

Then, indeed, he cast an inquiring glance around, in the possibility,
though not probability, of meeting a familiar face. All at once, his
dark eyes brightened and his bearing lost its indifference. Pushing
his way rapidly through the crowd, he approached Abel and Mercy and
extended his hands in greeting.

"Hail, old friends! Well met!"

"Hey? What? Ruther think you've got the better of me, stranger," said
the pioneer, awkwardly extending his own hardened palm.

"Probably the years since we met have made a greater change in me than
in you. You both look exactly as you did that last day I saw you at
the harvesting."

"Hey? Which? When? I can't place you, no how. I ain't acquainted with
ary sailor, so far forth as I remember."

"But Gaspar, Father Abel? Surely, you and Mercy remember Gaspar Keith,
whom you sheltered for so many years, and who treated you so badly at
the end?"

"Glory! It ain't! My soul, my soul! Why, Gaspar--_Gaspar!_ If it's
you, I'm an old man. Why, you was only a stripling, and now----"

"Now, I'm a man, too. That's all. We all have to grow up and mature. I
feel older than you look. And Mercy, the years have certainly used you
well. It is good, indeed, to see your faces here, where I looked for
strangers only."

"Them's us, lad. Them's us. _We're_ the strangers in these parts. Just
struck Chicago this very day. Got stuck in the mud, and had to be
fished out like a couple of clams. And who do you think done the
fishing? Though, if you hadn't spoke that odd way just now, I'd have
thought you would have known first off. Who do you suppose?"

"Oh, he'll never guess. A man is always so slow," interrupted Mercy,
eagerly. "Well, 'twas nobody but our own little Kit! The Sun Maid, and
looking more like a child of the sunshine even than when you run off
with her so long ago."

"The--Sun--Maid! _Kit-ty, my Kitty?_"

Gaspar's face had paled at the mention of the Sun Maid to such a
grayness beneath its brown that Mercy reached her hand to stay him
from falling; but at his second question her womanly intuition told
her something of the truth.

"Yes, Gaspar, boy. Your Kitty, and ours. We hadn't seen her till
to-day, neither; not since that harvestin'. But the longing got too
strong and, when we was burnt out, we came straight for her. Didn't
you know she was here yet? Or didn't you know she was still alive?"