In a moment the good woman's arms were around her neck. "I always liked you the best of the two," she whispered into the ear of the astonished young lady. Having found that Ruth was unhurt, I ran to the assistance of the others. The gentleman had just arisen from a cushion, upon which, lying flat on his back, he had slid over the grass, still holding under one arm the package from which he had refused to part. I helped him to raise the elder lady to her feet. She had been a good deal shaken, and much frightened, but although a little bruised, she had received no important injury. I went to fill a leather pocket-cup from a brook near by, and when I returned I found the gentleman standing, confronted by Mrs. Lecks, Mrs. Aleshine, and Ruth, while his own companions were regarding the group with eager interest. "Yes," he was saying, "my name is Dusante, but why do you ask at this moment? Why do you show such excited concern on the subject?" "Why?" exclaimed Mrs. Lecks. "I will tell you why, sir. My name is Mrs. Lecks, and this is Mrs. Aleshine, and if you are the Mr. Dusante with the house on the desert island, this is the Mrs. Craig who was married in that very house, and the gentleman here with the water is Mr. Craig, who wrote you the letter, which I hope you got. And if that isn't reason enough for our wanting to know if you are Mr. Dusante, I'd like to be told what more there could be!" "It's them! Of course it's them!" cried Mrs. Aleshine. "I had a feelin' while we were scootin' down-hill that they was near and dear to us, though exactly why and how, I didn't know. And she's told me she's Lucille, and of course the other must be Emily, though what relations----" "Am I to understand," interrupted the gentleman, looking with earnest animation from one to the other of us, "that these are the good people who inhabited my house on the island?" "The very ones!" cried Mrs. Aleshine. "And what relation are you to Emily? and Lucille to her?" The gentleman stepped backward and laid down the package which he had held under his arm, and advancing towards me with outstretched hands, and with tears starting to his eyes, he exclaimed: "And this man then, to whom I owe so much, is Mr. Craig!" "Owe me!" I said. "It is to you that we owe our very lives, and our escape from death in mid-ocean." "Do not speak of it," he said, shaking his head with a sorrowful expression on his face. "You owe me nothing. I would to Heaven it were not so! But we will not talk of that, now. And this is Mrs. Craig," he continued, taking Ruth by the hand,--"the fair lady whose nuptials were celebrated in my house. And Mrs. Lecks, and Mrs. Aleshine." As he spoke he shook hands with each. "How I have longed to meet you! I have thought of you every day since I returned to my island, and discovered that you had been--I wish I could say--my guests. And where is the reverend gentleman? And the three mariners? I hope that nothing has befallen them!"