I awoke, after my short sleep, in the gray dawn, to find the world astir already, the great sea before my window spreading far away, calm and glistening as a lake, and the sun shining cheerily in the pale blue of the morning sky. The people without, in their holiday attire, seemed happy and hopeful; but for me, alas! there was not much of either hope or happiness. I began to think very seriously of the future. Yes; I must leave East Craig, and try in Edinburgh or Glasgow, or, who knew, even in London! to earn a livelihood for Lilian and myself. I could surely sew, or work, for the bread we both needed. My bonny Lilian unconsciously added to my sorrows on that bright, sad morning of the new year, by the way she lisped her little prayer for 'dear father;' but I managed, for her sake, to be strong and brave again, and came down-stairs with a smiling face. 'I'm wishin' ye a happy new year, ma'am!' blurted out Jeanie, the lassie from a cottage hard by, who performed the rougher household duties of our modest household for such wages as content a girl of thirteen. Oh, but it was hard, to preserve a steady demeanour, and acknowledge Jeanie's well-meant greeting, and sit down to breakfast with little Lilian in her black frock beside me, and---- A knocking at the door, quick and strong. The heavy tread too of a man's impatient foot upon the shingly path that led up from the wicket of the narrow garden. My visitors, I need not say, were few, and I knew none who were likely to come thus early. 'I can see no one now!' I cried apprehensively to Jeanie, as that active lass bustled forward to answer the peremptory summons. 'Not even me!' answered a voice, the sound of which made me tremble and grow white, as they told me later, to my very lips, while the door burst open, and with dilated eyes I gazed as on a vision. Yes; the tall, bronzed, bearded man who rushed into the room and caught me to his heart, and kissed me and the bairnie again and again, was Archie, my Archie, my dear goodman that I had believed to be dead and cold, far off beneath the measureless waters of the Pacific.