"Mother! My mother! How sweet that sounds! But tell me how can this be?
Who am I, and where is she? How did you find it out, and, oh! Paul, are
you _sure_, quite sure? A disappointment after this would be hard to
bear."

"Have no fears, Darry, there is no longer the slightest shadow of a
doubt. The minute my aunt set her eyes on that crescent-shaped mark on
your arm she knew beyond all question that Heaven had granted her
prayers of years, and in this marvelous way restored her only child to
her again. She saw you leap overboard to save that little child, and she
recognized in your face the look she remembered so well as marking the
countenance of her husband, now long since dead. She says you are his
living picture as a boy."

"I remember some lady seizing hold of my arm after they dragged me
aboard the lifeboat, but at the time I believed it must be the mother of
the child, and I was anxious to get back to my place, for the boat might
upset with one oar missing. And that was--my mother?"

How softly, how tenderly, he spoke the word, as though it might be
something he had only dared dream about, and had difficulty in realizing
now that he could claim what nearly all other boys had, a parent.

"Yes, that was my dear Aunt Elizabeth. I wired her away down in South
America, where she was visiting cousins, and it has taken her quite a
while to get here. She had to change steamers twice, and meant to come
back here from New York by rail, when a strange freak of fortune sent
that vessel upon the reef, and placed you in the lifeboat that went to
the rescue. After this I shall stand in awe of the mysterious workings
of Providence, since this beats anything I ever heard of. I could see
something familiar in your looks, and after hearing your story sent for
her on a chance. That was why I dared not tell you any more than I did.
If I had only known about the history of that scar on your arm I would
have been positive. She asked me immediately about it, and when I told
her it was surely there she fainted again."

"My mother! how strange it seems. Go on please, Paul," murmured the boy,
reaching out and possessing himself of the other's hand, as though its
touch gave him assurance that this was not one of his tantalizing
dreams.

"I went in search of you, and one of the men told me he had seen you
walking down the beach, as though attracted by the light which he
believed was a lantern carried by a wrecker, perhaps the feared