Ten minutes afterwards and the brawny smith threw his hammer aside, and commenced to undo the thongs that fastened his leathern apron about his loins.

“I’ve finished my stint, lad,” he said; “and now we can go into the house, where you’ll meet my better-half.  I’ve told her so much about you, she is eager to make your acquaintance.  As for this fine, manly little chap here, who seems to spring straight into my heart the more I look at him, as if he belonged there, she’ll be half-tickled to death at the chance to cuddle him in her motherly arms.  Alas! lad, it’s been many a long, weary year since she had the privilege of loving a child of her own.  Sometimes when I see her sitting there, so quiet like, and looking into the wonderfully brilliant sunset skies, I seem to know what she is thinking about, and I feel for her.  It’s harder on a mother, than anyone else, to lose her child as we did our poor, reckless boy.”

Hugh felt a queer sensation in the region of his heart when he heard the big man speak so mournfully.  He realized then as never before how the heart of a parent can never fully recover from a cruel shock, such as the loss of one who as a little child had come, it was hoped, as a ray of sunlight in the lives of those who loved him.

The home of the smith adjoined his shop.  There was, in fact, a door that connected them, and through this Deacon Winslow now led his thrice welcome guests.  Presently they found themselves in what seemed to be a cozy little sitting-room, where a wood-fire blazed cheerily on the hearth.

Seated in one of those invalid wheel-chairs, which can be so easily manipulated by the occupant, after becoming expert at the job, was a most benign-looking and motherly old lady, with snow-white hair, and a face that was one of the sweetest and most patient Hugh had ever gazed upon.

He knew instantly that he was going to like Mrs. Winslow just as much as he did her big husband.  All the good things he had heard about her benevolence must then be true, he concluded, as he looked on her smiling face.

“Mother, here’s my friend, Hugh Morgan, come out to take supper with us, as I told you he’d half-promised to do,” said the deacon, in his breezy fashion.  “And see, he has fetched a little chap along with him who’ll warm your heart as nothing else could do.  This is Joey Walters, who, with his mother, is stopping at the Morgan home.  Hugh didn’t say whether they were any relatives of his or not; but this is a mighty winsome morsel, Mother, for you to hug.”

He thereupon lifted the child up in his strong hands and placed him in the lap of the old lady.  Hugh noticed that she started, and stared hard at the chubby face of little Joey, just as the deacon had done; and then she turned her wondering eyes toward her husband.  There was a look akin to awe in their depths, something that told how the sight of the child took her instantly back years and years to those never-to-be-forgotten days when just such a lovely little cherub had come to bless their home.