never be found.”

“God bless him! God bless him!” said a deep voice from the bed.

The children started; it was the voice of Old Moggy. They had not supposed she was listening, much less that she was capable of speaking. The rest of the children remembered William’s remarks on the previous evening, and all eyes were turned on him. He stood white as ashes, and trembling in every limb. While they had before been speaking, the window had been darkened by a person passing before it. William had remarked it, and he had taken it into his head that it was that of a person come to carry him off to prison for his misdeeds. The rest had been so interested in what they were hearing that they had not observed that a stranger was near them.

“Ye said that she knows the truth; ay, that she does, and practises what the Word of Truth tells us; for instead of railing she blesses, and from her heart forgives them who have ill-treated her,” said Jenny. “Poor, harmless, weary soul that she is! Those young ones who stand there can know little of the sorrows and trials she has been called on to endure. She has seen loss of parents, and property, and husband, and child, and her good name, and all that we think makes life pleasant; and now that she has found her way to this lone place, to die in peace, the Evil One has made these lads come up here to mock and torment her. I mind reading of a good prophet going to a certain village in a foreign land, and the lads came out and mocked him, and called him old bald-head, and what do ye think happened? Why, two she-bears came out of a wood and destroyed forty and two of them. I don’t mean to say that Old Moggy is like the old prophet, but yet she is aged and friendless; and those who abuse and ill-treat her are, in the eyes of the Almighty, doing a great wickedness; that they are, I’m sure.”

While Jenny was speaking, the lips of the sufferer were seen to move; and in the same deep tones which had before been heard, the words came forth, “but forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. Yes, yes: oh, I forgive them; they didn’t know any better; they thought I was a witch; they thought I could work charms, and had bad power. Oh! they would not have done as they did if they had known of my weary, weary, aching heart; my poor boy underneath the sea—my husband drowned before my eyes—my sad, sad days, my sleepless nights—my wandering brain—my hunger and thirst—my wretched, wretched life for long, long lonesome years. All these things you did not know of, young gentleman, when you and your companions threw stones at me. Don’t think I would curse you for it. No, no. Come near, my children. I bless you, ay! from my heart, all of you. You who ill-treated me and you who never did me harm.”

Slowly and reluctantly, with awe in their countenances, the children drew still nearer to the bed. The old woman’s voice had dropped through weakness and exhaustion, yet she continued—

“My lot has been very hard, very hard; yet I have had a Friend above who has upheld and comforted me. And yet I have had many trials, many trials, many trials. My brain reels and wanders. I think of my husband and my boy, my only boy, many fathoms deep beneath the cold, cold waves, and then my head turns and my heart changes into stone, and I forget where I am and what has happened.”

The old woman began to ramble, and suddenly burst forth in the wild song which she had been singing on the previous evening.

Jenny Davis shook her head, observing, “She’ll not be right after this for some time. When the fit comes on her there’s no more sense to be looked for till she has had some rest.”

“I will send her up a quieting draught and some wholesome food, which will probably do her more good than any medicine,” said the Doctor, taking Anna’s hand, and motioning the others to move towards the door.

William had hitherto not spoken a word. “Papa, may I take her up the medicine and food?” he said, and big tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Yes, William, you may,” was the answer.

Dr Morgan and his children had got outside the hut, and were on their way down the steep side of the mountain, when they heard a cheery shout behind them. Turning round, Anna instantly sprang up the hill, and in another moment was in the arms of a young gentleman who was running down to meet them.

“It is Frank! It is Frank!” burst from the lips of the rest.

“Why, father! Charley! who would have thought it?” cried the young stranger, warmly greeting them; “and Willie, and Mabel, and Arthur! What big people they have become! I little expected to have found you so soon; and you were in that poor old woman’s hut, too! Well, that is curious! The truth is, I am lost, or rather I couldn’t find you. I mislaid Charley’s letter, and though I thought I knew the name of the place, I found, when I got into the country, that I hadn’t the slightest notion of what it was; and after wandering about for a couple of days, I determined to write to old Evans, at Bangor, and to await his answer at the inn on the other side of the mountain.”

“Then, Frank, you are the young gentleman who saved Old Moggy’s life,” said Anna. “How delightful!”

“Oh, did I? I merely threw my jacket over the poor creature’s legs, and put out the fire which had caught her clothes and would have burnt her,” answered the midshipman. “I am very glad I was of use, though it’s not a thing to be proud of. It was very fortunate, however, for me, for I don’t know how otherwise I should have found you. There is one thing I should like to do, and that is to thrash the heartless young monkeys who threw stones at the poor woman. If I can find them I will.”

William looked down, overwhelmed with shame, and almost wished that Frank would thrash him.

“Then what brought you back to the hut, my boy?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, to look after the poor old woman,” said Frank, “I understood from the nurse—Jenny Davis she told me was her name—that she has no friends, and so I thought it was but right and proper to come back and see how she was getting on. I dropped a bundle with some old shirts and other things in at the window; but seeing some people there, not dreaming that they were all of you, I of course wouldn’t go in. I waited, expecting you soon to go away, and fortunately I made you out, or I should have gone back to my inn, and not known that I had been close to you.”

“Bless you, my boy, bless you! may you ever act in the same way from principle, and not merely from the impulse of the heart, good as that may be,” said the Doctor, warmly, pressing Frank’s hand, and undoubtedly feeling the contrast between his conduct and that of William. “And now let us hear something about yourself,” he continued, in a more cheerful tone than he had hitherto been speaking in.

The young sailor had plenty to talk about, though, as he remarked, he found his words apt to block up the hatchway, he was in such a hurry to get them out of the hold.

Charles and Anna were eager to hear about Tom Holman, and William would have liked to hear what his brother was saying, but, in shame, he hung back some way behind the rest, and when they reached the house his father told him to go to his room, and wait there till summoned Frank saw that there was something wrong, but forbore to inquire, hoping soon to have an opportunity of pleading for the culprit.

“Ah, that comes, whatever it is, of his being brought up by old Becky Ap Reece,” he thought to himself. “I am heartily glad he is free of her, though he may never get a farthing of her money. He was a plucky little chap, and with good training something might be made of him; but she treated him like one of her poodles, and would soon have made him of no more use in the world than a puppy dog.”

Though Frank Morgan was thoughtful, he was one of the merriest fellows under the sun, and among the lightest of heart