d to go to Suneva with
it, and the task was not a pleasant one to her. She had never been in
her father's house, since she left it with her son in her arms; and it
was not an easy thing for a woman so proud to go and say to the woman
who had supplanted her--"I have done wrong, and I am sorry for it."

Yet it did not enter her mind to disobey the instructions given her;
she only wanted time to consider how to perform them in the quietest,
and least painful manner. She took the road by the sea shore, and sat
down on a huge barricade of rocks. Generally such lonely communion
with sea and sky strengthened and calmed her; but this morning she
could not bring her mind into accord with it. Accidentally she
dislodged a piece of rock, and it fell among the millions of birds
sitting on the shelving precipices below her. They flickered with
piercing cries in circles above her head, and then dropped like a
shower into the ocean, with a noise like the hurrahing of an army.
Impatient and annoyed, she turned away from the shore, across the
undulating heathy plateau. She longed to reach her own room; perhaps
in its seclusion she would find the composure she needed.

As she approached her house, she saw a crowd of boys and little Jan
walking proudly in front of them. One was playing "Miss Flora
McDonald's reel" on a violin, and the gay strains were accompanied by
finger snappings, whistling, and occasional shouts. "There is no quiet
to be found anywhere, this morning," thought Margaret, but her
curiosity was aroused, and she went toward the children. They saw her
coming, and with an accession of clamor hastened to meet her. Little
Jan carried a faded, battered wreath of unrecognizable materials, and
he walked as proudly as Pompey may have walked in a Roman triumph.
When Margaret saw it, she knew well what had happened, and she opened
her arms, and held the boy to her heart, and kissed him over and over,
and cried out, "Oh, my brave little Jan, brave little Jan! How did it
happen then? Thou tell me quick."

"Hal Ragner shall tell thee, my mother;" and Hal eagerly stepped
forward:

"It was last night, Mistress Vedder, we were all watching for the
'Arctic Bounty;' but she did not come, and this morning as we were
playing, the word was passed that she had reached Peter Fae's pier.
Then we all ran, but thou knowest that thy Jan runs like a red deer,
and so he got far ahead, and leaped on board, and was climbing the
mast first of all. Th