The great liner swiftly pushed her homeward way through the rolling surges of the Atlantic. Other yearning, tender hearts there doubtless were whose sole freight of hope the steamer carried; but the heart that beat so anxiously in the little Guernsey cottage had the most at stake. The ordeal of the past months had not lessened Fenella’s beauty. The outlines of her features were sharper, their tints less vivid than of old. The tawny eyes looked wistfully out upon the world from orbits that were hollowed with grief and watching, the chestnut hair showed a thread of silver here and there. Would Ronny know his mother again? Fenella often asked herself that question. Meanwhile, for the child’s sake, she husbanded her newly-recovered strength with jealous care. She ate and drank, rose and slept, walked and rested, for Ronny. He must not find a peevish invalid in place of the old playfellow. None but her own hands should henceforth minister to the needs of this small idol of her heart. With these and other fond foolish fancies, she wore away the tedious hours of waiting. One of her usual walks led in the direction of the village of St. Sampson’s. The brown-faced quarrymen and fisher-folk grew accustomed to the sight of the pale, plainly-dressed lady with the wistful eyes, who so often paused to rest, or to smile at and speak kindly to the sturdy, sun-burnt urchins that rolled in the dust by cottage thresholds, and pulled off their blue knitted caps as they passed her, in rude homage of her beauty, and respect for her loneliness. One bright October afternoon she sat upon one of the rough wooden benches facing the wall of the little harbor, watching the progress of a child’s game. There were five players, four of them hard-fisted, mop-headed urchins, with the brown skins and blue eyes that seem indigenous to the island. The fourth was a girl of nine or ten, a pale-faced, black-haired little creature, with a shrewd, selfish manner and a voice of unchildish shrillness. The game had to do with a wedding, of course--all the Guernsey children’s games deal with marriages or christenings--and the song that accompanied it was vocalized with immense vigor and zest by all the performers: Jean, gros Jean, marryit sa fille, Grosse et grasse et bie habille. A un marchand d’sabots; Radinguette, Radin got! The verse was repeated with even more shrillness. Then the marriage procession tailed away round the corner with a clattering of little wooden shoes, the sallow-faced girl gallantly supported on the tattered jacket-sleeve of the most bullet-headed of the boys. Fenella laughed, not with the ringing, careless music of the old days, but still sweetly and clearly. She lifted her eyes and met the melancholy glance of a shabby man, a stranger whose attention, like her own, had been attracted by the children.