child," I said. "If he is Harry Martin I shall keep him. My
wife has been very lonely since our baby died, and she has taken
a fancy to this little chap."

When we reached my home old Abel recognized the child as Harry
Martin.

He is with us still. His baby hands led my dear wife back to
health and happiness. Other children have come to us, she loves
them all dearly; but the boy who bears her dead son's name is to
her--aye, and to me--as dear as if she had given him birth. He
came from the sea, and at his coming the ghostly dream-child
fled, nevermore to lure my wife away from me with its exciting
cry. Therefore I look upon him and love him as my first-born.



VI. THE BROTHER WHO FAILED

The Monroe family were holding a Christmas reunion at the old
Prince Edward Island homestead at White Sands. It was the first
time they had all been together under one roof since the death of
their mother, thirty years before. The idea of this Christmas
reunion had originated with Edith Monroe the preceding spring,
during her tedious convalescence from a bad attack of pneumonia
among strangers in an American city, where she had not been able
to fill her concert engagements, and had more spare time in which
to feel the tug of old ties and the homesick longing for her own
people than she had had for years. As a result, when she
recovered, she wrote to her second brother, James Monroe, who