“Oh, arrah,” said she with a sigh, “if the girl ain’t in love with that Tom, false whiskers and all. I wish she could see the beauty of his face without them, and she would fall in love with him all over again. Biddy Roan, if you weren’t everything that’s homely in the world you might take a turn at love yourself.” She ironed vigorously, and then went to the porch again in answer to Helen’s call. “I say, auntie,” said the girl, “how is Tom my cousin, on my mother’s side or my father’s?” “Your mother’s,” said the woman shortly. “And what----” “Now don’t you try to pump any secrets out of me, you sly little fox; you wait until your cousin comes home; then you ask him. He’s more able to tell you about yourself than I am.” “Then I’ll wait, Aunt Biddy,” said the girl. “Then, if you are my aunt, and Tom is my cousin, you must be the same relation to him as you are to me.” The Irishwoman stared with a love-light shining in her eyes. “I told you not to worry your little head,” said she, “for when Tom comes home you can ask him everything you want to.” So the girl had to be silent. She swayed softly to and fro, and after a while she sank into a sleep. * * * * * It might be well while the girl is sleeping and the quiet summer sun is shining upon a peaceful river, to go back a while to that night fifteen years ago when Tom Cooper had saved the child in the river. Jim Farren sailed down the stormy river toward Hell Gate. He was no sailor, but he steered his boat as best he could. Then for a long time after he was in the sea, he knew not what to do. He had not dared to go toward the city, for fear of being tracked, although he knew that Biddy would take him in. But Biddy’s welcome must wait until there was a better chance of not being detected. He watched every light, fearing that one might be a boat to pick up the escaped convicts, who had long ago been missed. It was the puffing of a great steamer that made him rise high in his boat and give screams that rang over the water. Soon he saw the great searchlight turn in his direction and then drop. He hastily skinned off his clothes and dropped them into the sea. He knew that his head looked badly, for it had been only so lately shaved. But this had been his day for a hair cut, so that there was a little growth upon his head. Soon he saw a boat lowered, and before time had elapsed long enough to tell the story, the convict was in the steamer and nestling in a warm sailor’s bed, and steaming out for a foreign country. There was nothing that could have suited Jim better. When he arose after a few days’ illness there was no sign of New York and not a shadow of the walls that had covered him so long. He did not try to come back to his native city for fifteen years, and then one day Jim Farren, not much changed in appearance, turned his face homeward and landed in New York, just one day before the twentieth birthday of sweet Helen Standish.