jangling of bells were heard without. With a "Durn them beasts!" the deacon breathlessly turned tail and fled in pursuit of the mail-sleigh, mounting it over the luggage-rack. When he had turned the corner, Matt's grinning face emerged from behind the snow-capped stump of a juniper.

"I reckon I fetched him thet time," he said, throwing away the remaining snowball, as he hastened gleefully inside to partake of the contents of the letter.

He found his mother sitting on the old settle in the kitchen, her spectacled face gray as the sand on the floor, her head bowed on her bosom. One limp hand held the crumpled letter. She reminded him of a drooping foxglove. The room had a heart of fire now, the stove in the centre glowed rosily with rock - maple brands, but somehow it struck a colder chill to Matt's blood than before.

"Father's drownded," his mother breathed.

"He'll never know 'bout Billy now," he thought, with a gleam of relief.

Mrs. Strang began to wring her mittened hands silently, and the letter fluttered from between her fingers. Matt made a dart at it, and read as follows:

DEAR MARM,-Don't take on but ime sorrie to tell you that the Cap is a gone goose we run the block kade onst slick but the 2 time we was took by them allfird Yanks we reckkend to bluff 'em in the fog but about six bells a skwad of friggets bore down on us sudden like ole nick the cap he sees he was hemd in on a lee shoar and he swears them lubberly northers shan't have his ship not if he goes to Davy Jones his loker he lufs her sharp up into the wind and sings out lower the longbote boys and while the shot was tearin and crashin through the riggin he springs to the hall-yards and hauls down the cullers then jumps through the lazzaret into the store room kicks the head of a carsk of ile in clinches a bit of oakem dips it in the ile and touches a match to it and drops it on the deck into the runin ile and then runs for it hisself jumps into the bote safe with the cullers and we sheer off into the fog muffin our oars with our caps and afore that tarnation flame bust out to show where we were we warnt there but we heard the everlastin fools poundin away at the poor old innocent Sally Bell till your poor boss dear marm he larfs and ses he shipmets ses he look at good old Sally she's stickin out her yellow tongue at em and grinnin at the dam goonies beg pardon marm but that was his way he never larfed no more for wed disremembered the cumpess and drifted outer the fog into a skwall and the night was comin

on and we drov blind on a reef and capsized but we all struck out for shore and allowed the cap was setting sale the same way as the rest on us but when we reached the harbor the cap he warnt at the helm and a shipmet ses ses he as how he would swim with that air bundle of cullers that was still under his arm and they tangelled round his legs and sorter dragged him under and kep him down like sea-weed and now dear marm he lays in the Gulf of Mexiker kinder rapped in a shroud and gone aloft I was the fust mate and a better officer I never wish to sine with for tho he did sware till all was blue his hart was like an unborn babbys and wishing you a merry christmas and God keep you and the young orfuns and giv you a happy new year dear marm you deserve it.

ime yours to command,

HOSEA CUDDY (Mate).

p s.-i would have writ erlier, but i couldn't get your address till i worked my way to Halifax and saw the owners scuse me not puttin this in a black onwellop i calclated to brake it eesy.

Matt hastily took in the gist of the letter, then stood folding it carefully, at a loss what to say to the image of grief rocking on the settle. From the barn behind came the lowing of Daisy -half protestation, half astonishment at the unpunctuality of her breakfast. Matt found a momentary relief in pitying the Then his mother's voice burst out afresh.

COW.

"My poor Davie," she moaned. "Cut off afore you could repent, too deep down fur me to kiss your dead lips. I hevn't even got a likeness o' you; you never would be took. I shall never see your face again on airth, and I misdoubt if I'll meet you in heaven."

"Of course you will-he saved his flag," said Matt, with shining eyes.

His mother shook her head, and set the roses on her bonnet nodding gayly to the leaping flame. "Your father was born a Sandemanian," she sighed.

"What is thet?" said Matt.

"Don't ask me; there air things boys mustn't know. And you've seen in the letter 'bout his profane langwidge. I never would 've run off with him; all my folks were agen it, and a sore time I've hed in the wilderness 'way back from my beautiful city. But it was God's finger. I pricked the Bible fur a verse, an' it came: An' they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she

constantly affirmed it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel.''

She nodded and muttered, "An' I was his angel," and the roses trembled in the firelight. "If you were a good boy, Matt," she broke off, "you'd know where thet thar varse come from."

"Hedn't I better tell Harriet?" he asked.

"Acts, chapter eleven, verse fifteen," muttered his mother. "It was the finger of God. What's thet you say 'bout Harriet? Ain't she finished tittivatin' herself yet-with her father layin' dead, too?" She got up and walked to the foot of the stairs. "Harriet!" she shrieked.

Harriet dashed down the stairs, neat and pretty.

"You onchristian darter!" cried Mrs. Strang, revolted by her sprightliness. "Don't you know father's drownded?"

Harriet fell half-fainting against the banister. Mrs. Strang caught her and pulled her towards the kitchen.

"There, there," she said, "don't freeze out here, my poor child. The Lord's will be done."

Harriet mutely dropped into the chair her mother drew for her before the stove. Daisy's bellowing became more insistent. "An' he never lived to take me back to Halifax, arter all!" moaned Mrs. Strang.

"Never mind, mother," said Harriet, gently. "God will send you back some day. You hev suffered enough."

Mrs. Strang burst into tears for the first time. "Ah, you don't know what my life hes been!" she cried, in a passion of self-pity.

Harriet took her mother's mittened hand tenderly in hers. "Yes we do, mother-yes we do. We know how you hev slaved and struggled."

As she spoke a panorama of the slow years was fleeting through the minds of all three-the long blank weeks uncolored by a letter, the fight with poverty, the outbursts of temper; all the long-drawn pathos of lonely lives. Tears gathered in the children's eyes-more for themselves than for their dead father, who for the moment seemed but gone on a longer voyage.

Harriet," said Mrs. Strang, choking back her sobs, “bring down my poor little orphans, and wrap them up well. We'll say a prayer."

Harriet gathered herself together and went weeping up the stairs. Matt followed her with a sudden thought. He ran up to his room and returned, carrying a square sheet of rough paper.

His mother had sunk into Harriet's chair. He lifted up her head and showed her the paper.

"Davie!" she shrieked, and showered passionate kisses on the crudely-colored sketch of a sailor-a figure that had a strange touch of vitality, a vivid suggestion of brine and breeze. She arrested herself suddenly. "You pesky varmint!" she cried. "So this is what become o' the fly-leaf of the big Bible !"

Matt hung his head. "It was empty," he murmured.

"Yes, but there's another page thet ain't-thet tells you to obey your parents. This is how you waste your time 'stead o' wood-choppin'."

"Uncle Matt earns his livin' at it," he urged.

"Uncle Matt's a villain. Don't you go by your Uncle Matt, fur lan's sake." She rolled up the drawing fiercely, and Matt placed himself apprehensively between it and the stove.

"You said he wouldn't be took," he remonstrated.

Mrs. Strang sullenly placed the paper in her bosom, and the action reminded her to remove her bonnet and sacque. Harriet, drooping and listless, descended the stairs, carrying the twoyear-old and marshalling the other little ones-a blinking, bewildered group of cherubs, with tousled hair and tumbled clothes. Sprat came down last, stretching himself sleepily. He had kept the same late hours as Matt, and, returning with him from the "muddin' frolic," had crept under his bed.

The sight of the children moved Mrs. Strang to fresh weeping. She almost tore the baby from Harriet's arms.

"He never saw you!" she cried, hysterically, closing the wee yawning mouth with kisses. Her eyes fell on Billy limping towards the red-hot stove where the others were already clustered.

"An' he never saw you," she cried to him, as she adjusted the awed infant on the settle. "Or it would hev broke his heart. Kneel down and say a prayer for him, you mischeevious little imp."

Billy, thus suddenly apostrophized, paled with nervous fright. His big gray eyes grew moist, a lump rose in his throat. But he knelt down with the rest and began bravely:

"Our Father, which art in heaven-"

"Well, what are you stoppin' about?" jerked his mother, for the boy had paused suddenly with a strange light in his eyes.

"I never knowed what it meant afore," he said, simply. His mother's eye caught the mystic gleam from his.

"A sign! a sign!" she cried, ecstatically, as she sprang up and clasped the little cripple passionately to her heaving bosom.

CHAPTER II

THE DEAD MAN MAKES HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE

THE death of his father-of whom he had seen so littlegave Matt a haunting sense of the unsubstantiality of things. What! that strong, wiry man, with the shrewd, weather-beaten face and the great tanned hands and tattooed arms, was only a log swirling in the currents of unknown waters! In vain be strove to figure him as a nebulous spirit-the conception would not stay. Nay, the incongruity seemed to him to touch blasphemy. His father belonged to the earth and the seas; had no kinship with clouds. How well he remembered the day, nearly three years ago, when they had parted forever, and, indeed, it had been sufficiently stamped upon his memory without this. final blow.

It is a day of burning August-so torrid that they have left their coats on the beach. They are out on the sand flats, wading for salmon among the giant saucers of salt water, the miniature lakes left by the tide, for this is one of the rare spots in