in, even though the
tide was low!"

"What! alongside o' Aunt Betty?"

"Yes, even alongside o' Aunt Betty; for if this voyage has taught me
anything at all, it has taught me that, after all, `there's no place
like home!'"

"Right you are, Nell," said Joe Slag, who came up at that moment,
"there's no place like home--when it's a happy one; but if it ain't a
happy one, there may be difference of opinion even on that pint, d'ee
see?"

That very night, a great ocean steamer, bound from the Antipodes to Old
England, chanced to diverge from her true course, and sighted the
beacon-fire which Tomlin--on duty at the time--was stirring up to
fervent heat. The Captain was not one of those whom Terrence O'Connor
credited with diabolic possession. He was a good man; and, knowing that
men did not light beacon-fires on lonely islands merely for amusement,
he resolved to lay-to till daylight, which was due in about an hour from
the time the island was sighted. Meanwhile, he sounded his steam
whistle.

At the sound, the hut instantly disgorged its male inmates, who,
recognising the familiar noise and the steamer's lights, sent up a shout
of mingled joy and thanksgiving.

"Get out the boat, boys!" cried Hayward, as he ran back to the hut to
rouse the women.

"Get ready, quick! Eva; a steamer at last, thank God, in the offing!
Don't lose a moment. They may have little time to wait. Boat will be
ready in a few minutes."

"Ay, an' pack up all you want to carry away," cried the coxswain,
crossing the threshold at that moment.

"So it is all going to end suddenly like a dream!" said Eva, as she
hastened to obey orders.

"Home, sweet home!" murmured Nellie, trembling with joy at the prospect.

"Wherever you are, my dear, the home will be sweet," said Peggy.
"Though of course it wouldn't be that without your 'usband, for it takes
two to make a fight, you know, an' it takes two no less, I think, to
make things pleasant, but--dear, dear, what a disagreeable thing it is
to 'ave to dress in a 'urry, though one shouldn't--"

"Look alive, there! look al-i-ve!" roared O'Connor, putting his head in
at the door. "Daylight's a-breakin', an' they won't--"

"Oh! Terrence, that reminds me--don't forget our pets," cried Nellie,
who had steadily declined to speak of them as "live stock."

"All right, missis. It's lookin' after them I am this minnit."

The Irishman ran, as he spoke, to the styes and hutches where the pigs
and rabbi