"Ah, tell her I'm glad, darling!" Mrs. Trott said, with a smile. And she went and stooped down before the child and added: "Won't you give old grandmother a sweet little hug? There! there! that's a darling little man!" And Cavanaugh saw her pressing the boy to her breast and kissing his cheeks. When the child had left she came back to her chair, her face filled with a rare maternal glow. "If you were a younger man, Mr. Cavanaugh, and childless, as you now are, I'd advise you to adopt children. I don't know why or how it is, but I know that persons can love other children than their own and love them deeply, too. I love Tilly's two-- I really do. That child there, that little boy with all his cute ways and moods, takes me back to the childhood of my own son. But I neglected him. How I could have done it only God knows, but I did, and you know it better than any one else besides myself. You gave him a fine start, and if he had lived he would have made a great success. But I must stop-- I must stop! I think I know what Tilly's good news is. Joel has been trying to rent the Marsden farm. He put in a bid for it. It is a big place, and Mr. Marsden furnishes supplies. Maybe Joel has got it. I hope so, for he is at the end of his rope." "The good news is not for poor Joel, Mrs. Trott. The truth is that Tilly wants to tell you the same thing I've come to tell you. You know I said that I never was fully convinced about John. Now what if I was to tell you that I went to New York to make sure?" "Make sure? Make sure that--that John--" she began and stopped. He nodded, holding her bewildered stare by his fixed eyes. "I found out enough up there to be sure, Mrs. Trott." "You mean that John-- Why, you _can't_ mean that--?" Again he nodded. "I've been afraid to shock you with the good news, but he is alive and prospering. I was with him a week." She was convinced. She sat white and limp. She put her thin hands to her face as if to hide her joy from him. He saw her breast heaving. He heard her sob in an effort to control her emotion, and then she became quiet. * * * * *