“Yes, he is coming soon to us,” she half whispers, leaning over the old man’s chair.  “Or else we are soon going to him.  It may mean that, sir.  Perhaps it is better that it should.”

“It matters little, child, if he be near, as near he is.”

And sure enough while Mark is telling of the good run he has had, Tom’s fresh voice is heard.  Yes!  There he was in bodily flesh and blood; thin, sallow, bearded to the eyes, dressed in ragged sailor’s clothes.

Grace uttered a long, soft, half laughing cry, full of the delicious agony of sudden relief; and then slipped from the room past the unheeding Tom, who had no eyes but for his father.  Straight up to the old man he went, took both his hands, and spoke in the old, cheerful voice.

“Well, my dear old daddy!  I’m afraid I’ve made you very anxious; but it was not my fault; and I knew you would be certain I should come at last, eh?”

“My son! my son!” murmured the old man.  “You won’t go away again, dear boy?  I’m getting old and forgetful; and I don’t think I could bear it again, you see.”

“Never again, as long as I live, daddy.”

Mark Armsworth burst out blubbering like a great boy.

“I said so!  I always said so!  The devil could not kill him and God wouldn’t.”

“Tom,” said his father presently, “you have not spoken to Grace yet.  She is my daughter now, Tom, and has been these twelve months past.”

“If she is not, she will be soon,” said Tom, quietly.  With that he walked straight out of the room to find Grace in the passage.

And Grace lay silent in his arms.

* * * * *

Water-Babies

Charles Kingsley wrote “The Water-Babies, a Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby,” under romantic circumstances.  Reminded in 1862 of a promise he had made that “Rose, Maurice, and Mary have got their books, the baby must have his,” Kingsley produced the story about little Tom, which forms the first chapter in “The Water-Babies,” a fairy tale occupying a nook of its own in the literature of fantasy for children.  After running serially through “Macmillan’s Magazine,” the “Water-Babies” was published in book form in 1863, dedicated “To my youngest son, and to all other good little boys.”  Mrs. Kingsley, in the life of her husband says “that it was perhaps the last book that he wrote with any real ease.”  The story, with its irresponsible and whimsical humour, throws an altogether delightful light upon the character of Charles Kingsley—­clergyman, lecturer, historian, and social reformer.

I.—­“I Must be Clean!"

Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was Tom.  He lived in a great town in the North Country where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep and plenty of money for Tom to earn, and his drunken master to spend.  He could not read nor write, and did not care to do either; and he never washed himself, for there was no water up the court where he lived.  Chimney-sweeping and hunger and beatings, he took all for the way of the world, and when his master let him have a pull at the leavings of his beer Tom was the jolliest boy in the whole town.