the
steamer had turned around the great point of the island and her eyes
caught the big open sea, I saw them filling, gradually. She was thinking
of the gallant lad who had fallen for his first and greatest mother.
Recollections came to her of sailing away with him, with hopes and
ambitions rosier than the illumined shores before us, that were kissed
by the sun under a thin covering veil of mist. She remembered the days
of her toil, rewarded at last by the ripening of her divine gift, and
the days of love crowned by the little treasure on her lap. But now, all
that had been very beautiful in her life was gone, saving the tiny one
to whom she could not even sing a lullaby and whose very livelihood was
precarious.

I knew that when she was in this mood it was better to say nothing or
even appear to take no notice. Suddenly, a child running along the deck
fell down, a dear little girl I ran to and lifted in my arms.
Confidingly, she wept upon my collar which, fortunately, was a soft one.
A broad shouldered youth made his way towards me.

"Hand her over, Mister," he said, pleasantly, "she's one o' mine."

He took the child from me, tenderly, and I looked at him, somewhat
puzzled, but instant recognition came to him.

"Say," he declared, breezily, "you's the guy I seen th' other day when I
wuz havin' me picture took."

He extended a grateful hand, which I shook cordially, for he was no less
a personage than Kid Sullivan, who would have been champion, but for his
defeat. On my last call upon Frieda at her studio I had seen him in the
lighter garb of Orion, with a gold fillet about his brow, surmounted by
a gilt star. I bade him come with me, but a couple of steps away, to
where Frances sat, and I had left a small provision of chocolate drops.

"This," I said, "is my friend Mr. Sullivan. The child belongs to him,
and I have come to see whether I cannot find consolation for her in the
box of candy."

Frances bowed pleasantly to him, and he removed his cap, civilly.

"Glad to meet ye, ma'am," he said. "Thought I'd take the wife and kids
over to the Island. The painter-lady found me a job last week. It's only
a coal wagon, but it's one o' them five-ton ones with three horses.
They're them big French dappled gray ones."

I looked at Frances, fearing that this mention of his steeds might bring
back to her the big Percherons of Paris, the omnibuses climbing the
Montmartre hill or rattling through the Place St. Michel, th