account, just."

"Blessed Saints!" exclaimed Philip, "what'll we do?"

"I'm afraid we must ask charity, till we can get work," said Nelly.

"No, no! I can't do that! I will die first!" cried Philip; then
laying his face down on the table, he burst into tears and sobbed
out--"Oh Nelly, darling, I wish I were dead and out of your way!--sure
I'm no use in the world."

Nelly clasped the "strange baby" to her heart and murmured--"God help
us!" Just at that moment, there came a knock at the cabin door--she
opened it and dropped a respectful curtesy. It was the Earl, and a
gentleman in mourning, who as soon as he saw the baby that Nelly held,
caught it in his arms and began kissing it, and weeping over it, crying
out that he had found his boy! The Earl explained that the stranger
was a kinsman of his, a Scotch Laird, whose wife had been lost in the
wreck, a few weeks before, while on her way to visit her relatives at
the castle, with her child and servants. He said, they had not
received the letter announcing her coming--so had not thought of
looking for friends among the drowned and burned who were washed ashore
after the wreck; but they had heard of the child so miraculously saved,
and hoped that it might be their kinsman's son.

When Nelly fully realized that she must lose her adopted child, she
fell at the feet of the father, crying with tears and sobs,--"Oh, sir,
I cannot let him go! I warmed him out of the death-chill at my
heart--I gave him my own dead darling's place! It will kill me, just,
to part with him!"

"And you shall not part with him, my good woman," said the Laird--"the
child must have a nurse--he should have none but you. I will take you
and your husband with me to Scotland, if you will come!"

So, to make a long story short, the poor schoolmaster and his wife were
provided with a comfortable home for the rest of their days, for their
kindness to the little shipwrecked boy, who was always dear to them,
and always returned their love.

Many others may adopt poor foundlings and care for them tenderly, and
yet never have rich lords come to claim their charges and reward them
so generously; but the Lord of all will not fail to ask for his "little
ones" at last,--and to those who do good to "the least of these" He has
promised rewards more glorious than the greatest earthly monarch could
give--and _He will keep his word_.

* * * * *

Here end my stories and legends