urely I knew every feature of it, every fold
of the dress, every tiny detail in the face and figure. It was the
counterpart of a picture which hung opposite my bed in my London home.

'However on earth did you get that?' I cried. 'Why, it's my mother's
picture!'

I think I have never felt more startled than I did at that moment. After
all the thoughts of yesterday, after my dream of last night, after all
my recollection of my mother's words to me, and her prayers for
me--after all this, to see her dear eyes looking at me from the wall of
the house of this unknown man, in this remote, out-of-the-world spot,
almost frightened me.

I did not realize at first that my host was almost as much startled as I
was.

'Your mother!' he repeated; 'your mother! Surely not! Do you mean to
tell me,' he said, laying his hand on my arm, 'that your name is
Villiers?'

'Of course it is,' I said; 'Jack Villiers.'

'Nellie, Nellie,' he cried, for she had gone upstairs to the children,
'come down at once; who do you think this is, Nellie? You will never
guess. It is Jack Villiers, the little Jack you and I used to know so
well. Why, do you know,' he said, 'our own little Jack was named after
you; he was indeed, and we haven't heard of you for years--never since
your dear mother died.'

I was too much astonished at first to ask him any questions, and he was
too much delighted to explain where and how he had known me; but after a
time, when we had recovered ourselves a little, we drew our chairs round
the fire, and he began his story.

'I was a poor little street Arab once,' he said; 'a forlorn boy with no
one to love him or to care for him. But I made friends with an old man
in the attic of the lodging-house who had a barrel-organ.'

'_That_ barrel-organ?' I asked.

'The very same,' he said, 'and he loved it as if it was a child. When he
was too ill to take it out himself, I took it for him, and that was how
I first saw your mother.'

'Was she married then?' I asked.

'No,' he said with a smile; 'she was quite a little girl, about the age
of our Marjorie. She used to run to her nursery window as soon as she
heard me begin to play. I let her turn the organ one day, and she said
she liked all the tunes, but she liked "Home, Sweet Home" the best of
all.'

'Did she?' I said. 'Yes, I have often heard her sing it; she sang me to
sleep with it many a time.'

'As I played it,' he went on, 'she would speak to me of the Home, Sweet
H