d neglected it,
and the fire had sunk low. She stooped to rake its embers together,
and, as she did so, at length her laughter escaped her; soft
laughter, terrible to hear.

In the midst of it a voice--a high, jolly, schoolboy voice--called
out from the gateway demanding, in execrable Portuguese, to be shown
Lady Vyell's tent. She dropped the raking-iron with a clatter and
stood erect, listening.

"Dicky?" . . . she breathed.

Yes; the tent flap was lifted and Dicky stood there in the twilight;
a Dicky incredibly grown.

"Dicky!"

"Motherkin!" He was folded in her arms.

"But what on earth brings you to this terrible Lisbon, of all
places?"

"Well, motherkin," said he with the finest air of importance, "a man
would say that if a crew of British sailors could be useful
anywhere--We'll teach your Portuguese, anyhow. Oh, yes, the
_Pegasus_ was at Gibraltar--we felt the shock there pretty badly--and
the Admiral sent us up the coast to give help where we could.
A coaster found us off Lagos with word that Lisbon had suffered worst
of all. So we hammered at it, wind almost dead foul all the
way . . . and here we are. Captain Hanmer brought me ashore in his
gig. My word, but the place is in a mess!"

"That is Captain Hanmer's footstep I hear by the gate."

"Yes, he has come to pay his respects. But come," said the boy,
astonished, "you don't tell me you know Old Han's footstep--begging
his pardon--at all this distance."

Yes she did. She could have distinguished that tread had it marched
among a thousand. Her brain had held the note of it ever since the
night she had heard it at Sabines, crushing the gravel of the drive.
Dicky laughed, incredulous. She held the boy at arm's length,
lovingly as Captain Hanmer came and stood by the tent door.

So life might yet sound with honest laughter; ay, and at the back of
laughter, with the firm tread of duty.

The story of Ruth Josselin and Oliver Vyell is told. They were
married ten days later in the hospital at Belem by a priest of the
Church of Rome; and afterwards, on their way to England in His
Majesty's frigate _Calliope_, which had brought out stores for the
relief of the suffering city and was now returning with most of the
English survivors, Sir Oliver insisted on having the union again
ratified by the services of the ship's chaplain. Ruth, whose sense
of humour had survived the earthquake, could smile at this
supererogation.

They landed at Plym