vening fire, and they had
looked from their chamber windows toward the Red Light upon Rose Island
to see if it were coming true. This vision was, that they were to awake
some morning after an autumnal storm, and to find an unknown vessel
ashore behind the house, without name or crew or passengers; only there
was to be one sleeping child, with aristocratic features and a few
yards of exquisite embroidery. Years had passed, and their lives were
waning, without a glimpse of that precious waif of gentle blood. Once
in an October night Miss Martha had been awakened by a crash, and
looking out had seen that their pier had been carried away, and that a
dark vessel lay stranded with her bowsprit in the kitchen window. But
daylight revealed the schooner Polly Lawton, with a cargo of coal, and
the dream remained unfulfilled. They had never revealed it, except to
each other.

Moved by a natural sympathy, Miss Martha went with Stephen to see the
injured child. Gerty lay asleep on a rather dingy little mattress, with
Mr. Comstock's overcoat rolled beneath her head. A day's illness will
commonly make even the coarsest child look refined and interesting; and
Gerty's physical organization was anything but coarse. Her pretty hair
curled softly round her head; her delicate profile was relieved against
the rough, dark pillow; and the tips of her little pink ears could not
have been improved by art, though they might have been by soap and
water. Warm tears came into Miss Martha's eyes, which were quickly
followed from corresponding fountains in Madam Delia's.

"Thy own child?" said or rather signalled Miss Martha, forming the
letters softly with her lips. Stephen had his own reasons for leaving
her to ask this question in all ignorance.

"No, ma'am," said the show-woman. "Not much. Adopted."

"Does thee know her parents?" This was similarly signalled.

"No," said Madam Delia, rather coldly.

"Does thee suppose that they were--"

And here Miss Martha stopped, and the color came as suddenly and warmly
to her cheeks as if Monsieur Comstock had offered to marry her, and to
settle upon her the snakes as exclusive property. Madam Delia divined
the question; she had so often found herself trying to guess the social
position of Gerty's parents.

"I don't know as I know," said she, slowly, "whether you ought to know
anythin' about it. But I'll tell you what I know. That child's folks,"
she added, mysteriously, "lived on Quality Hill."

"