Miss Ruth gave such a start as the small bundle of fur was so unexpectedly thrust at her that poor Nel-te rolled to the ground. From there he lifted such a pitifully frightened little face, with such tear-filled eyes and quivering lip, that Miss Ruth snatched him up and hugged him. Then she kissed and petted him to such an extent that by the time he was again smiling he had won a place in her loving heart second only to that occupied by Phil himself. With this journey's end also came the partings that always form so sad a feature of all journeys' ends. Even the three dogs that had travelled together for so long were separated, Musky being given to Serge, Luvtuk to May Matthews, to become the pet of the _Phoca_'s crew, and big Amook going with Phil, Aunt Ruth, Nel-te, the sledge, the snow-shoes, and the beautiful white thick-furred skin of a mountain goat to distant New London. Mr. Ryder and Jalap Coombs accompanied them as far as San Francisco. Dear old Serge was reluctantly left behind, busily making preparations to carry out his cherished scheme of returning to Anvik as a teacher. In San Francisco Mr. Ryder secured for Jalap Coombs the command of a trading schooner plying between that port and Honolulu. When it was announced to him that he was at last actually a captain, the honest fellow's voice trembled with emotion as he answered: "Mr. Ryder, sir, _and_ Phil, I never did wholly look to be a full-rigged cap'n, though I've striv and waited for the berth nigh on to forty year. Now I know that it's just as my old friend Kite Roberson useter say; for he allers said, old Kite did, 'That them as waits the patientest is bound to see things happen.'" THE END. FOOTNOTES: [2] Begun in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE No. 801. OAKLEIGH. BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND. CHAPTER IV. Mr. Franklin's announcement at first almost stunned his children. They could not believe it. Jack and Cynthia were somewhat prepared for it, it is true, but when they heard the news from their father's own lips it was none the less startling. To Edith it came like a thunderbolt. She had never had the smallest suspicion that her father would marry again. She had always supposed that she would be sufficient for him. She would never marry herself, she thought, but would stay at home and be the comfort of his declining years. It had never occurred to her that her father, still a young and good-looking man of barely forty, would be exceedingly likely to marry a second time. And now what was to happen? A stranger was coming to rule over them. Edith would never endure it, never! She would go away and live with Aunt Betsey. Anything would be better than a step-mother. When she spoke her voice was hard and unnatural. "Haven't I done right, papa? Weren't you satisfied with me? I have tried."