in, would not Gervas have long ago brought her the tidings? Should
she look over the balcony only to be disappointed again? Ah! she had
been prudent, for the sounds were dying away. Nay, there was a foot
at the door! Gervas with ill news! No, no, it bounded as never did
Gervas's step! It was coming up. She started from the chair,
quivering with eagerness, as the door opened and in hurried her
suntanned sailor! She was in his arms in a trance of joy. That was
all she knew for a moment, and then, it was as if something else were
given back to her. No, it was not a dream! It was substance. In
her arms was a little swaddled baby, in her ears its feeble wail,
mingled with the glad shout of little Humfrey, as he scrambled from
the cradle to be uplifted in his father's arms.

"What is this?" she asked, gazing at the infant between terror and
tenderness, as its weak cry and exhausted state forcibly recalled the
last hours of her own child.

"It is the only thing we could save from a wreck off the Spurn," said
her husband. "Scottish as I take it. The rogues seem to have taken
to their boats, leaving behind them a poor woman and her child. I
trust they met their deserts and were swamped. We saw the fluttering
of her coats as we made for the Humber, and I sent Goatley and Jaques
in the boat to see if anything lived. The poor wench was gone before
they could lift her up, but the little one cried lustily, though it
has waxen weaker since. We had no milk on board, and could only give
it bits of soft bread soaked in beer, and I misdoubt me whether it
did not all run out at the corners of its mouth."

This was interspersed with little Humfrey's eager outcries that
little sister was come again, and Mrs. Talbot, the tears running down