Steadily the ocean greyhound plowed its way through the dark swells of the Atlantic. A heavy bank of clouds covered the eastern sky almost to the zenith, its upper edges paling in the glare of the full moon slowly ascending beyond. The night was pleasant, the decks crowded. A young man and a young woman sat by an elderly lady, hand in hand. They had been talking of a journey made the year previous upon the same vessel, when the ocean sang a new sweet song. They heard it again this night and were lost in dreams, when the voice of a well-known novelist, who was telling a story to a charmed circle, broke in: "It was my first journey upon the ocean. We had been greatly interested in the little fellow because he was a waif from the great Parisian world, and although at that time tenderly cared for by the gentle woman who had become his benefactress, somehow he seemed to carry with him another atmosphere, of loneliness--of isolation. Think of it, a motherless babe afloat upon the ocean. It was the pathos of life made visible. He did not realize it, but every heart there beat in sympathy with his, and when it was whispered that the little voyager was dead, I think every eye was wet with tears. Dead, almost consumed by fever. With him had come the picture of a young and beautiful woman. He took it with him beneath the little hands upon his breast. That night he was laid to rest. Never had motherless babe such a burial. Gently, as though there were danger of waking him, we let him sink into the dark waters, there to be rocked in the lap of the ocean until God's day dawns and the seas give up their dead. That was thirty years ago; yet to-night I seem to see that little shrouded form slip down and down and down into the depths. God grant that its mother was dead." When he ceased the elder woman in the little group had bent her head and was silently weeping. "It sounds like a page from the early life of Gaspard Levigne," she said to her companions. And then to the novelist, in a voice brimming over with tenderness: "Grieve not for the child, my friend. God has given wings to love. There is no place in all His universe that can hide a baby from its mother. Love will find a way, be the ocean as wide and deep as eternity itself." And then, as they sat wondering, the moon rose above the clouds. Light flashed upon the waves around them, and a golden path, stretching out ahead, crossed the far horizon into the misty splendors of the sky. THE END. Writings of Harry Stillwell Edwards "Two Runaways" and other stories "His Defense" and other stories "The Marbeau Cousins" "Sons and Fathers" "Eneas Africanus" "Eneas Africanus, Defendant" "Just Sweethearts" "How Sal Came Through" "Brother Sim's Mistake" "Isam's Spectacles" "The Adventures of a Parrot" "Shadow"--A Christmas Story "The Vulture and His Shadow" "On the Mount" "Mam'selle Delphine" _Others of Our Interesting Books_ Not by Edwards