about the necessary "recording" which
must be made. Then she rallied, remembering, also, that other precious
parent, alive and waiting for her and it.

"Keep you the box, Samson. I, myself, must keep and carry this."

She fastened it within her blouse and kept one hand upon it all the rest
of the way. A brief and happy way, which ended in a mother's arms and in
the wild welcome of every dweller at Sobrante. And when the mother's
arms set their recovered treasure free for a moment there were all the
"boys" ready and waiting to seize and carry her from point to point,
telling how careful had been each one's stewardship and how they would
never let her go again. Never.

As for Ninian Sharp he did not recognize himself in the hero they all
made of him, nor did even Aunt Sally presume to offer him, so wonderful
a man, a nauseous dose. But she was overheard to remark to Wun Lung, who
had also joined the company unforbidden by his arch enemy:

"I do believe, Wun Lungy, that if ever that there handsome young man
should go and get married I'd set him up in my fifty-five thousand five
hundred and fifty-five piece bedquilt. I did lay out to bequeath it to
Jessica, but, la! I can piece her another, just as willin' as not. What
you say, Wun Lungy?"

"I slay, fool woman!"

For a time joy and surprise turned Ned and Luis speechless; yet they
were sent to bed late that night, each hugging a sharp-edged train of
tin cars and breathing, "Choo! choo!" as if a railway were a common
sight instead of an unknown one.

But there came at last a quiet hour for mother and child, when they sat
in close embrace, telling all that had befallen each during the days of
separation.

"Oh! if dear Ephraim were only here, mother! I said it should not be
a month before that title deed was found, and the month will not be up
until to-morrow. Poor Ephraim! It was bitter hard to leave him alone in
that hospital, well-liked and cared for though he is. If it hadn't been
for him I could never have gone. And the 'boys' would have made such a
hero of him. Even as they did of Mr. Sharp. Can't you guess how proud
they'd have been of him, mother?"

When Mrs. Trent did not reply, Jessica looked up quickly and saw that
dear face so near her own still clouded by a shadow of trouble.

"Why, mother! What is it? You look as if you were not perfectly,
absolutely happy, and yet how can you be else--to-night?"

"Yes, darling, I am happy. So glad and thankful that