"Mother," said Isaac Ogden, sternly, "it seems to me that _you're_ not likely to spoil your health by frettin' over my little lad. You take it very easy it seems to me, and my brother takes it easy too, and so does Dr. Bardly--but then Dr. Bardly was nothing akin to him. Folk says that grandmothers care more for chilther than their own parents does; but you go on more like a stepmother nor a grandmother." This was hard for Mrs. Ogden to bear, and she was strongly tempted to reveal the truth, but she forebore and remained silent. Ogden resumed,-- "I cannot tell how you could find in your heart to bake them little cakes when th' child isn't here to eat 'em." The effort to restrain herself was now almost too much for Mrs. Ogden, since it was the fact that she had baked the said little cakes, or others exactly like them, and prepared various other dainties, for the especial enjoyment of Master Jacob, who at that very minute was regaling himself therewith in the privacy of his hiding-place. Still she kept silent. After another pause, a great paroxysm of passionate regret seized Ogden--one of those paroxysms to which he was subject at intervals, but which in the presence of witnesses he had hitherto been able to contend against or postpone. "Oh, my little lad!" he cried aloud, "oh, my little innocent lad, that I drove away from me to perish! I'd give all I'm worth to see thee again, little 'un!" He suddenly stopped, and as the tears ran down his cheeks, he looked out of the window into the black night. "If I did but know," he said, slowly, and with inexpressible sadness--"mother, mother, if I did but know where his bits o' bones are lying!" It was not possible to witness this misery any longer. All Dr. Bardly's solemn injunctions, all dread of a possible relapse into the terrible habit, were forgotten. The mother had borne bitter reproaches, but she could not bear this agony of grief. "Isaac," she said, "Isaac, my son, listen to me: thy little lad is alive--he's alive and he's well, Isaac." Ogden did not seem to realize or understand this communication. At last he said, "I know what you mean, mother, and I believe it. He's alive in heaven, and he can ail nothing, and want nothing, there." "I hope he'll go there when he's an old man, but a good while after we go there ourselves, Isaac." A great change spread over Ogden's face, and he began to tremble from head to foot. He laid his hand on his mother's arm with a grasp of iron. His eyes dilated, the room swam round him, his heart suspended its action, and in a low hissing whisper, he said, "Mother, have they found him?" "Yes--and he's both safe and well."