“At first,” Lis took up his tale again, trying to laugh off the tragic air of the other three, “they didn’t find the ring, because the cord round my neck had broken and the ring itself was caught in the lining of my coat. The Professor—that’s what I called him, he really was a quite famous authority on Chinese history—lived so much by himself, he never heard of all the inquiries that were being made for me in the city. But one of the servants, in cleaning my coat, found the ring and brought it to him. The Professor recognized Sun Li’s seal and was quite frightened. So he sent it off in a hurry to the governor, relating how and where he had found it—and me. And of course after that it was all plain sailing. Sun Li sent for me when I was able to be up and about, and gave me an audience in the most gorgeous old hall, hung with silks and banners and smoking torches, that you’ve ever dreamed of. As the _Spray_ had sailed the day before, he sent me home by the _Lightning_, Captain Culverson, you know—which was also sailing for Boston, luckily for us all, that same week. And here I am.” “But—but”—Erica was stammering in her excitement—”but how did you come _here_ this morning with Tommy?” Lis pointed out into the harbor, past the _Spray_ at her anchorage, to where a new clipper, her white wings furled and her tall masts raking the blue sky, lay at anchor. “We got in late last evening,” he explained, “and it wasn’t till it was light this morning that I saw my own ship, the _Spray_, was right in the next berth, so to speak. So I got permission from Captain Culverson to be rowed over to the _Spray_ bright and early, and, to my astonishment, found Tommy preparing to come ashore to meet a passenger, and came with him.” ”_W-well!_” Erica sighed. She was quite exhausted with emotion and the morning’s excitement. “It’s the most wonderful thing I ever heard of, Lis. But”—her forehead puckered suddenly—”but, Lis, which of you is sailing in the _Spray_ this morning—you or Tommy? For I suppose one of you must go.” “I am,” Tommy put in, quickly. “Lis has had one voyage, you know, and, besides, I was the one who was to have shipped in her originally.” “And I guess Aunt Callie needs to have Lis near her for a while,” Erica put in, happily. “We all do. Oh, Lis, it’s been such a—a terrible time!” Ten minutes later, a third and final good-by having been said to Tommy, he piloted his passenger into the _Spray’s_ boat, and Lis and Erica, hand in hand like two children, walked back to Cousin Kate’s through Boston’s early-morning streets, now beginning to be astir with the traffic of the day. “And sometime,” Lis was saying to an eagerly attentive Erica, “Sun Li wants your father to bring you out to Canton, to visit in the governor’s palace, Rick.”