She murmured as she sat in the little arbor by her home, “Oh, God, why did I leave him as I did; he is alone, all alone; no kindred friends to comfort him; Oh, why did I leave him?” She was weeping piteously when a hand was laid on her head, and the owner said, “Found at last, my own. Were you weeping for me?” asked the manly voice by her side. Nettie looked up in the manly face as she answered, “Forgive me, love, for doubting you.” She was overcome with joy, and fell fainting at his feet. He picked her up and bore her into the cottage. As he laid her down on the lounge he called, and Nettie’s mother came to her side. As she returned to consciousness Paul stood motionless, gazing at the mother and daughter. “Can it be!” he exclaimed aloud. “Can it be what?” asked the mother, looking up at the young man for the first time, as she had been busily applying restoratives to her child and had forgotten everything else, whom she had never seen in this condition before. She noticed how thin and pale Nettie had grown lately, and it grieved her deeply. When she looked at the stranger she turned as white as her daughter and sank on the floor by the side of the lounge. “Sir, why did you come here? What have I done to be persecuted in this way,” she asked. She was gazing wildly at him, and it troubled him very much. “My dear madam, you are laboring under a great mistake, as there is a mystery here we must try to solve,” said the young man, taking the picture out of his pocket and handing it to her saying, “Madam, did you ever see this?” She took it with trembling hands and opened it and exclaimed passionately, “Sir, where did you get this?” “It was left in a little tin box for me by my mother,” answered Paul. “How came she to have it? It was my picture I gave to a young man many years ago. It is the same one, as here is the lock of hair and the initials of my maiden name,” said the lady as she sat gazing at it earnestly and deeply thinking. It brought back memories of the past. “How happy I was when I gave the picture to him; no shadow obscured the fair horizon of my life; but time will change all things; babes will grow to be men and women, and soon will grow to old age if God spares them to this world of sorrow. I for one have borne many trials. Whenever cast down, the thought will ever arise, ‘God doeth all things well.’ How strange it is that a stranger should have a picture given to a friend twenty-five years ago,” said the lady in meditation. “Madam, it is strange, very strange indeed. It is a mystery. My father supposed you dead and in time married my mother. Yet one of my servants told me my father loved the picture so much that when he was told it was burned up he went away and never has been heard of since. He left home when I was a babe on my mother’s breast. I am going to find him if he is alive,” said the young man vehemently. “I must find him if he is in the land of the living.”