"She's verra kin'," he said to himself, as he walked up the street toward home, "verra kin', but it's no' sic a care as the lad's ane mither s'ould ha' ower 'im, an' he awa' fra hame i' the darkness o' the nicht so. But she dinna ken, she dinna ken as he be her son. Coom a day when that's plain to her, an' she'd spare naught to save 'im fra the ghost o' danger." When Bachelor Billy reached home, Mrs. Maloney was at the door to ask about Ralph. The man told her what Mrs. Burnham had said, and expressed an earnest hope that the boy would come safely back in the morning. Then' he went to his room, started a fire in the grate, and sat down, by it to smoke. It was already past his customary bed-time, but he could not quite make up his mind to go to bed without Ralph. It seemed a very lonely and awkward thing for him to do. They had gone to bed together every night for nearly three years, and it is not easy to break in upon such a habit as that. So Billy sat by the fire and smoked his pipe and thought about the boy. He was thoroughly convinced that the child was Robert Burnham's son, and all of his hopes and plans and ambitions, during these days, were centred in the effort to have Ralph restored his family, and to his rights as a member of that family. It would be such a fine thing for the boy, he thought. In the first place, he could have an education. Bachelor Billy reverenced an education. To him, it was almost a personality. He held that, with an education, a man could do anything short of performing miracles; that all possibilities of goodness or greatness that the world holds were open to him. The very first thing he would choose for Ralph would be an education. Then the child would have wealth; that, too, would be a great thing for him and, through him, for society. The poor would be fed, and the homeless would be sheltered. He was so sure of the boy's honest heart and moral firmness that he knew wealth would be a blessing to him and not a curse.