ence. Our petitions
have been heard, and this is the answer; so the last few years of our
lives may be made happy by the sight of our own flesh and blood. My
poor service has come up as a memorial before Heaven. And let us
hope that tomorrow, when that poor girl comes into her senses again,
she will be able to tell us all of the wonderful story."

"There is one thing I should have mentioned, sir, which slipped my
mind," Hugh went on to say just then. "Always in her delirium she
seems to be pleading with someone not to deny her a place under his
family roof with her little Joey. And it is to an imaginary
_grandfather_ she is appealing, so pathetically that I have seen my
mother crying time and again, for very sympathy."

"A grandfather, and cruel at that!" said the old man, shaking his
head, while the tears rolled unheeded down his furrowed cheeks. "At
least, that does not apply to me. She will learn presently that we
stand ready to take her into our hearts and home as our own. Oh! it
seems too good to be true, this blessing that has come to us
to-night. And, Hugh Morgan, you must always be associated in our
minds with this realization of our utmost hopes, which of late years
we have not even dared whisper to each other."

He wrung the boy's hand until Hugh almost writhed under the pressure;
while the happy "grandma" continued to devour the plump, rosy-cheeked
face of her charge with her eyes, as though she could not tear her
gaze away.

Long they continued to sit there and talk, always upon that one
subject, because everything else must be subordinated to the
wonderful revelation that had come to them, to prove that truth is
often stranger than fiction.

Three times did Hugh suggest that he had better be heading towards
home: but they pleaded with him to stay "just a little longer"; for
their starved hearts found it hard to let the newly found treasure
out of sight, even for a short time.

"But I must really be going," Hugh finally told them. "It is now
after ten, and mother will be worrying about the child, not knowing,
of course, that he has found a new protector, two of them, in fact.
You can both come over after breakfast in the morning, and visit the
boy. If his mother has regained her senses, and the doctor permits
it, you will be able to settle the matter once and for all by seeing
her."

So with that they had to rest content. The child was bundled up
warmly, and tenderly placed in the sleig