his society brought most
relief and comfort to the torn heart of the mother. "What made him so
confident?" she asked. He did not know; he had seen it, or dreamt it,
or _felt_ it somehow, only he felt unalterably convinced that so it was.
"They will come back, dear Mrs Evson, they will come back, you will
see," was his repeated asseveration; and oppressed as her heart was with
doubt and fear, she was never weary of those words.

And on the fourth day, while Mr Evson was absent, having gone to make
enquiries in London of all the ships which had passed by Saint
Winifred's on that day, Eden, radiant with joy, rushed into Dr Lane's
drawing-room, where Mrs Evson was sitting, and utterly regardless of
_les convenances_, burst out with the exclamation, "O Mrs Evson, it is
true, it is true what I always told you. Didn't I say that I knew it?
They _have_ been picked up."

"Hush, my boy; steady," whispered Mrs Lane; "you should have delivered
the message less suddenly. The revulsion of feeling from sorrow to joy
will be too much for her."

"O Eden, tell me," said the mother faintly, recalling her senses
bewildered by the shock of intelligence; "are you certain? Oh, where
are my boys?"

"You will see them soon," he said very gently; and the next moment, to
confirm his words, the door again new open, and Charlie Evson was
wrapped in his mother's arms, and strained to her heart, and covered
with her kisses, and his bright young face bathed in her tears of
gratitude and joy.

"Charlie, darling Charlie, where is Walter?" were her first words.

"What, don't you know me then, mother; and have you no kiss to spare for
me?" said the playful voice of a boy enveloped in a sailor's blue
shell-jacket; and then it was Walter's turn to feel in that long embrace
what is the agonising fondness of a mother's love.

Kenrick was looking on a little sadly--not envious, but made sorrowful
by memory. But the next moment Walter, taking him by the hand, had
introduced him to his mother and she kissed him too on the cheek. "Your
name is so familiar to me, Kenrick," she said; "and you have shared
their dangers."

"Walter has twice saved my life, Mrs Evson," he answered, "and this
time, I trust, he has saved it in more senses than one."

The boys' story was soon told. Just as their boat was beginning to
sink, and the bitterness of death seemed over, Walter caught sight of
the lights of a ship, and saw her huge dark outline looming not far