He saw that they were strangely shaken, and Hugh wisely believed it best to reassure them in the very beginning.

“First of all, sir,” he started to say, “I begin to believe it may be what you would wish most of all.  This boy who so much resembles your own child of the past is likely to turn out his son or perhaps grandson, for his mother’s name is Walters, we’ve learned.  You ask me where I found him, and I meant to tell you later on, never dreaming that it would interest you more than casually.  I picked him and his mother up Thursday evening just at dusk, when I was coming home from a farm in a sleigh, where I had been to get a sack of potatoes.  The young woman was trying to ask me something when she swooned away.”

“Go on, lad, go on!” pleaded the deacon hoarsely, as Hugh paused for breath.

“Of course, the only thing I could do was to get them into the sleigh and whip up the horse,” Hugh continued.  “Once I reached home my mother would not hear of the poor thing being taken to the hospital.  She had her put to bed and the doctor called in.  Since that time she has been threatened with fever; in fact, is partly out of her head, though Doctor Cadmus says he believes she will be sensible by to-morrow morning.  She was simply half-starved, and dreadfully worried about something.”

“But could you not hear a few random words she uttered that would give you some idea as to her identity, and where she came from?” asked the deacon.

“Besides her name, which seemed to be Walters, she has said nothing that gives us a clue, save that we imagine they must have lived somewhere in the West.”

“In the West—­and our Joel started for that section of the country!” gasped the old lady, still patting the curly head on her lap lovingly.

“And then the lad’s name is very similar,” broke in the deacon.  “Are you sure, Hugh, if isn’t Joel?  Might not the child have simply given the baby pronunciation of Joey?”

“I think that would be very likely, sir,” admitted the boy readily.

Again the agitated couple exchanged looks.  Hugh would certainly never forget the joyous expression that sat upon both faces.  It was as though Heaven had opened to them, and given them back the child of their younger years.

The deacon dropped down on his knees.  One arm went around his aged wife and the little fellow she cuddled in her lap.  In sonorous tones he lifted up his voice and gave thanks from the depths of his heart for the great mercy shown to them that night.

Hugh was deeply affected.  He believed some invisible hand must have guided him when he took that sudden notion to have the child go walking with him, his mother having suggested that it might do the little chap good to get an airing after being shut up in the house all day long.

His mind raced back, and once more he marshalled all the facts, as far as he knew them, before him.  Yes, there did not seem to be any reason to believe such a thing as a sad mistake could be made.  That boy certainly had the Winslow blood in him; why, he greatly resembled the Joel of more than fifty years back, as shown in that old-time daguerreotype.