He needed no such urging when the words were ready to fall in a stream from his lips.  So Hugh commenced, and rapidly sketched the strange happenings of the preceding evening—­how he had taken the little fellow with him for a walk, and stopped at the smithy to see the sparks flying upwards in showers; of the invitation to take supper, and spend an hour in chatting with the deacon and his good wife.  Then, quick on the heels of this he told how Mrs. Winslow, while holding Joey in her arms so lovingly as he slept in his innocence, had suddenly made that amazing discovery in connection with the baby chain, and smooth medallion, shaped like a locket.

She lay there with her eyes closed, eagerly drinking in every word the boy uttered.  The unrestrained tears crept unheeded down her cheeks; but Mrs. Morgan did not worry, because only too well did she know these were tears of overpowering joy; and not of grief.

Finally the story was all told, and she opened her eyes, swimming as they were, to look fondly at each of them in turn.

“What happiness has come into my life!” she said, with a great sigh; and, evidently, the load of years had rolled from her heart.  “And how grateful I must always be to the kind friends who have brought it to me and mine.  I can never do enough to show you how I appreciate it all.”

Then Hugh thought himself privileged to ask a few questions in turn, wishing to thoroughly satisfy himself with regard to several points that were as yet unexplained.

She told them how her husband had lost his life; and that, when she and the boy faced poverty, the resolution had come to her to go East and try to find the relatives whom she had only lately learned were located somewhere near Scranton.  She had come across an old and time-stained diary kept by her mother’s father, who, of course, was the runaway son of Deacon Winslow; and thus she learned how he had left his home in the heat of anger, and never once communicated with his parents up to the time of his death, which occurred a short three years after his marriage.

It was all very simple, and supplied the missing links in the chain.

After she had told them these things once more she asked Hugh about the aged couple.  That was a subject the boy could talk about most enthusiastically for a whole hour, he was that full of it.  And the happy look on her face told how like balm to her heart his words came.

“And they are coming to see you early this morning,” he finally assured her.  “I wouldn’t be surprised if either of them has had a single wink of sleep last night for counting the minutes creep by, they are that anxious to claim you and Joey.”

Just then the doorbell rang.  Hugh laughed, as though he had been expecting such a happening; in fact, he had heard the sound of sleigh runners without creaking on the hard-frozen snow, and suspected what it signified.

“There they are this minute!” he exclaimed; “shall I run down and let them in, Mother?  And ought they come right upstairs?”