“I hope so, too,” assented Mermaid. “If I can be so fortunate as to find the right man, or if some man can be fortunate enough to find me the right woman, or--well, both. We’ve both got to find each other, I suppose.” “Children,” said Mrs. Hand, with condensation. “The more the merrier.” Mermaid did not speak lightly. Some deepening of her voice took all the flippancy from the words. “You’ll have money, my money,” pursued Keturah Hand. “Eventually; it goes to John first. He’s a good brother to me and he’s been a good father to you, as good as he could have been to his own flesh and blood. You know the story?” she asked, with harsh suddenness. “Dad has told me,” Mermaid replied, quietly. “It is so many years ago that he has no thought but that his wife and his own daughter are dead.” “I have something to answer for in that connection,” her aunt said, and in spite of the harshness with which she spoke, her voice trembled. “I made Mary Smiley, that was Mary Rogers, very unhappy. I thought her unfit to be John’s wife. I--I rubbed it into her that she was unfit. Little, silly, childish, frivolous creature. How much I am to blame for her running away with her baby I don’t know--never shall, I suppose, until the time comes to answer for it.” “Whatever you said to her, the facts remain,” the girl commented. “Actions not only speak louder than words, they talk the universal language. She ran away.” “I think John felt that,” said Keturah. “He has a strict sense of justice and she wronged it. It was the child. That cut him to the heart, and no wonder. After five years you were washed ashore. I’ve always believed in miracles since that day.” Mermaid nodded. “When you study science, Aunt,” she said, confidingly, “you come to believe in miracles as a matter of course. That is, unless you have one of these impossible minds that thinks a thing more wonderful than the explanation. It’s the explanation of everything that’s really miraculous. For instance, you used to scoff at Dad and myself because we saw ghosts. There was the Duneswoman----” “You wrote me that it was an effect of phosphor----” Mrs. Hand paused, helplessly. “Phosphorescence,” supplied Mermaid, “the wonderful glow you see sometimes in sea water. It’s rare as far north as this but very common in the tropics. But to say it is an effect of phosphorescence doesn’t explain it, except to the impossible, narrow little mind. The real explanation lies in the mind of the person seeing it. If it were just a peculiar phosphorescent outline everybody should see it--everybody who was around. Dad and I see it; the others don’t. Do you know why?” Keturah hesitated, then shook her head.