"That is such a face as my mother had when young," he said at last. Then turning to Frank, "Did he know my mother? Is that the story?" Frank bent his head in assent. "That is the story," he said, "but it is long. Besides, it is his wish, I am sure, that another should tell it to you." He had taken from the chest some folded official-looking papers as he spoke, and glanced at them now, first hastily, then with growing interest. They were a quantity of registered bonds--the hermit's fortune, which in a few brief days had become, as he said, but a mockery of scrolled engraving and gaudy seals. Frank had only a slight knowledge of such matters, yet he wondered if by any possibility these old securities of a shipwrecked company might be of value to-day. The corporation title, he thought, had a familiar sound. A vague impression grew upon him that this company had been one of the few to be rehabilitated with time; that in some measure at least it had made good its obligations. "Suppose you let me take these," he suggested to Robin. "They may not be wholly worthless. At least, it will do no harm to send them to my solicitor." Robin nodded. He was still regarding the little tintype and the sweet, young face of the mother who had died so long ago. CHAPTER XII CONSTANCE RETURNS AND HEARS A STORY "I only told him," Frank wrote that night to Constance, "that the hermit's story had a part in his mother's life. I suppose I might have told him more, but he seemed quite willing to wait and hear it from you, as suggested by the hermit's letter, and I was only too willing that he should do so. Knowing Robin, as you have, from childhood, and the sorrow of his early days and all, you are much better fitted to tell the story, and you will tell it much better than I. Robin is to leave again to-morrow on a trip over Marcy (Tahawus, I mean, for I hate these modern names), but will be back by the end of the week, by which time I hope you also will once more make glad these lonesome forest glades. Seriously, Conny, I long for you much more than perhaps you realize or, I am sure, would permit me to say. And I don't mean to write a love letter now. In the first place, I would not disobey orders to that degree, and even if I did, I know that you would say that it was only because poor old Robin Gray's story and his death, and all, and perhaps wandering about in these woods alone, had made me a bit sentimental. Well, who knows just whence and how emotions come? Perhaps you would be right, but if I should tell you that, during the two weeks which have nearly slipped by since that day when we found our way through the mist to the hermit's cabin, my whole point of view has somehow changed, and that, whatever the reasons, I see with different eyes--with a new heart and with an uplifted spirit--perhaps I should be right, too; and if from such a consecration my soul should speak and say, 'Dear, my heart, I