h by his huge grandfather,
after the old lady had kissed his forehead and cheeks a dozen times.

Then they were off, and shortly afterwards arrived at the Morgan
home. Deacon Winslow insisted on carrying the tiny chap indoors;
after which he hastened back, to sit up most of the night with his
wife, talking of the wonderful thing that had come to bless them in
their old age.

And Hugh, on his part, had a deeply interested auditor in his mother,
as he spun the yarn that equaled anything he had ever read in the
Arabian Nights.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN A SAFE HARBOR AT LAST

Hugh had finished breakfast on Sunday morning, and was out looking
after a few pets he had in the way of Belgian hares and homing
pigeons, when he heard his mother calling him.

"Coming, Mother!" he answered hack, thinking on the spur of the
moment he was needed to look after the furnace or steam boiler, from
which the hired girl did not always succeed in getting the best
results on particularly frosty mornings.

She waited for him just inside the door. Hugh saw immediately that
his first surmise was wrong, for there was a look on her face to tell
him it was no trivial matter she had to communicate.

"What is it, Mother?" he asked quickly.

"She is asking for you, Hugh," he was told.

Then he suddenly remembered about the young mother who had lain there
since Thursday evening, and out of her mind with fever.

"Oh! then the good old Doc was right!" Hugh exclaimed; "he said, you
know, that he felt sure she'd be in her right senses by Sunday
morning. You've been talking with her, have you, Mother?"

"Yes, and relieving her immediate curiosity and alarm," he was told.
"Naturally, she was full of wonder when she awoke to find herself in
a strange room, with no little Joey near by. She thought it was the
hospital, and that the cold had claimed him for a victim. But I soon
calmed her fears, and she knows now all about how she came here; and
also that her boy is still sleeping happily close by; for he is
taking a long nap this morning, after his dissipation of last night."

"But, you didn't say anything about the deacon and his dear old wife,
did you?" continued Hugh.

"Not a word, my son. I wished you to be the one to convey the glad
news to that poor young mother. She wanted to ask me further
questions, but I avoided committing myself. She did come from the
Far West, it appears. Her money ran out just too soon and they had
to leave