Through the harbor, down the bay, and out upon the sea, a noble vessel rides; and as the evening wind comes dancing o'er the wave it sweeps across the deck, kissing the cheek of a brown-eyed boy and lifting the curls from the brow of one whose face, upturned to the tall man at her side, seems almost angelic, so calm, so peaceful, is its expression of perfect bliss. Many have gazed curiously upon that group, and the voices were very, low which said, "The little boy is deformed," while there was a world of sadness in the whisper, which told to the wondering passengers that "the beautiful bride was blind." They knew it by the constant drooping of her eyelids, by the graceful motion of her hand as it groped in the air, and more than all by the untiring watchfulness of the husband and brother who constantly hovered near. It seemed terrible that so fair a creature should be blind; and like the throb of one great heart did the sympathy of that vessel's crew go out toward the gentle Maude, who in her newborn happiness forgot almost the darkness of the world without, or if she thought of it, looked forward to a time when hope said that she should see again. So, leaving her upon the sea, speeding away to sunny France, we glance backward for a moment to the lonely house where Maude Glendower mourns for Harry's child, and where the father thinks often of his boy, listening in vain for the sound which once was hateful to his ear, the sound of Louis' crutches. Neither does John forget the absent ones, but in the garden, in the barn, in the fields, and the woodshed chamber, he prays in his mongrel dialect that He who holds the wind in the hollow of His hand will give to the treacherous deep charge concerning the precious freight it bears. He does not say it in those words, but his untutored language, coming from a pure heart, is heard by the Most High. And so the breeze blows gently o'er the bark thus followed by black John's prayers--the skies look brightly down upon it--the blue waves ripple at its side, until at last it sails into its destined port; and when the apple-blossoms are dropping from the trees, and old Hannah lays upon the grass to bleach the fanciful white bed-spread which her own hands have knit for Maude, there comes a letter to the lonely household, telling them that the feet of those they love have reached the shores of the Old World. CHAPTER XX. THE SEXTON.