t. When she came near, and saw the
old woman's face, she hurried, and, stooping down quickly, took her head
in her arms.

"Derrick has come back to you," she said. "Will you let him bring me
with him to call you mother?"

"Mary?"

She did not look at him. Old Phebe pushed her back with a searching
look.

"Is it true love you'll give my boy?"

"I'll try." In a lower voice,--"I never loved him so well as when he
came back to you."

The old woman was silent a long time.

"Thee's right. It was good for Derrick to come back to me. I don't know
what that big world be like where thee an' Derrick's been. The sea keeps
talkin' of it, I used to think; it's kep' moanin' with the cries of it.
But the true love at home be worth it all. I knowed that always. I kep'
it for my boy. He went from it, but it brought him back. Out of the sea
it brought him back."

He knew this was not his mother's usual habit of speech. Some great
truth seemed coming closer to the old fish-wife, lifting her forever out
of her baser self. She leaned on the girl beside her, knowing her, in
spite of blood and education, to be no truer woman than herself. The
inscrutable meaning of the eyes deepened. The fine, sad smile came on
the face, and grew fixed there. She was glad he had come,--that was all.
Mary was a woman; her insight was quicker.

"Where are you hurt?" she said, softly.

"Hush! don't fret the boy. It was the pullin' last night, think. I'm not
as strong as when I was a gell."

They sat there, watching the dawn break into morning. Over the sea the
sky opened into deeps of silence and light. The surf rolled in, in long,
low, grand breakers, like riders to a battle-field, tossing back their
gleaming white plumes of spray when they touched the shore. But the wind
lulled as though something more solemn waited on the land than the sea's
rage or the quiet of the clouds.

"Does thee mind, Derrick," said his mother, with a low laugh, "how thee
used to play with this curl ahint my ear? When thee was a bit baby, thee
begun it. I've kep' it ever since. It be right gray now."

"Yes, mother."

He had crept closer to her now. In the last half-hour his eyes had grown
clearer. He dared not look away from her. Joe and Bowlegs had drawn
near, and Doctor Bowdler. They stood silent, with their hats off. Doctor
Bowdler felt her pulse, but her son did not touch it. His own hand was
cold and clammy; his heart sick with a nameless dread. Was he, then,
ju