as if she must not leave her seat,
lest she miss the thread of the plot,--for a plot it surely was, with
its unravelling close at hand.

At last she saw the two men striding forward in the direction of the
steerage, and with a conspicuous absence of that aimlessness which
marks the usual promenade at sea.

The little girl was again amusing herself with the glasses, and, as
the two arbiters of her destiny passed her line of vision, she laughed
aloud at their swiftly diminishing forms. Impelled by a curious
feeling that the child must take some serious part in this crucial
moment of her destiny, Blythe quietly took the glasses from her and
said, as she had done each night when she put her little charge to
bed:

"Will you say a little prayer, Cecilia?"

And the child, wondering, yet perfectly docile, pulled out the little
mother-of-pearl rosary that she always wore under her dress, and
reverently murmured one of the prayers her mother had taught her.
After which, as if beguiled by the association of ideas into thinking
it bedtime, she curled herself up on the bench, and, with her head in
Blythe's lap, fell fast asleep.

And Blythe sat, lost in thought, absently stroking the little head,
until suddenly Mr. Grey appeared before her.

"You have been outrageously treated, Miss Blythe," he declared,
seating himself beside her, "but I had to let the old fellow have his
head."

"Oh, don't tell me anything, till we find Mamma," Blythe cried. "It's
all her doing, you know,--letting me have Cecilia up here," and,
gently rousing the sleeper, she said, "Come, Cecilia. We are going to
find the Signora."

"And you consider it absolutely certain?" Mrs. Halliday asked, when
Mr. Grey had finished his tale. She was far more surprised than
Blythe, for she had had a longer experience of life, to teach her a
distrust in fairy-stories.

"There does not seem a doubt. The child's familiarity with the crest
was striking enough, but that Bellini _Madonna_ clinches it. And then,
Giuditta's description of both father and mother seems to be
unmistakable."

"Oh! To think of his finding the child that he had never heard of,
just as he had given up the search for her mother!" Blythe exclaimed.

Cecilia was again playing happily with the glasses, paying no heed to
her companions.

"The strangest thing of all to me," Mrs. Halliday declared, "is his
relenting toward his daughter after all these years."

"You must not forget that Fate had