she said at last, trying to draw herself from
his embrace. "Zenas Henry is alone somewhere, almost broken-hearted; I
must find and comfort him."

But the arms that held her did not loosen their hold.

"Please let me go, Bob dear," she coaxed. "We mustn't be selfish."

Her request struck the right note and instantly she was free.

Robert Morton followed her to the door and stood watching as she
hurried along the copper-matted path of the woods sunflecked and
mottled with shadow.

What a sweet miracle it was, he mused! She was his now before all the
world, thanks to Willie's skilful pilotage. Where was the little old
man--that dreamer of dreams, who with Midas-like touch left upon
everything with which he came in contact the golden impress of his
heart? He must seek him out and thank him for his aid.

Perhaps the thought carried with it a potent charm of magic, for no
sooner had Robert Morton framed it than the inventor himself appeared
on the threshold.

"Well, another of my ships has made port!" cried he triumphantly.

His delicate face was illumined with a joy so transcendent that one
might easily have believed that it was to him love's touchstone had
been given.

"I never can thank you, Willie!" burst out the young man.

"Be good to Delight, my boy, an' make her happy; that's all the thanks
I want," was the grave response.

A pause fell between them. Perhaps Willie was thinking of the days
that must inevitably come when the girl he had loved since childhood
would be far away. How dull the gray house would be when she no longer
flitted in and out its doors! Try as he would to banish the selfish
reflection, it returned persistently. Then suddenly something quite
outside himself put the reverie to rout.

It was the querulous voice of Janoah Eldridge.

"I was right about them Galbraiths," he cried exultantly, standing in
the doorway and hurling the words into the room where the two men
lingered. "'Twas exactly as I said. Lyman Bearse's boy went up on the
Boston train one afternoon in front of Snelling an' that other feller
who was here, an' he heard every word they uttered. He said they
talked the whole way about gettin' a patent out on your invention.
Now, Willie Spence, was I right or warn't I? Mebbe you'll believe me
the next time I warn you against folks."

CHAPTER XXI

SURPRISES

The next morning Robert Morton awoke with the fixed determination that
another sun should not go d