Captain Brown looked on all this happiness approvingly.  His shore leave was going splendidly.  The neighbor’s horse and carriage were often brought into requisition, and the father would not be denied his share of these drives.  The captain’s own boat, long since unused, was put into commission, and with the captain at the tiller the whole family sailed over the placid Mersy.  The moon grew rounder, and as the evenings were warm, the boat often lingered in the moonlight.  Then songs were sung, Chester and Lucy singing some which the father recognized as “Mormon,” but which the captain knew only as beautiful and full of sweet spirit.

During those days when the visitors remained with the captain rather more for his own sake than for any other reason, there was just one little cloud in Chester’s and Lucy’s sunlight.  That was that the father took no abiding interest in the religion which now meant so much to them.  Once or twice the subject had been carefully broached by Chester, but each time the father had not responded.  He made no objections.  The young man sometimes thought there would be more hope if he did.  However, he and Lucy were not discouraged.  They reasoned, with justice, that it was no easy matter to change a life-long habit of belief and practice.  They comforted each other by the hope that all would be well in the end.  Had they not already ample evidence of God’s providence shaping all things right.

It was plainly to be seen, however, that the father took great comfort in his new-found son; and well any father might, for Chester was a strong, open-spirited, clean young man.  Father and son strolled out together, Lucy sometimes peeping at them from behind the curtain, but denying herself of their company.  Chester, by his father’s request, told him more of his life’s story.  The father wished to live as much as could be by word-telling the years he had missed in the life of his son; and the father, for his part, acquainted Chester with his more recent years.  “I married quite late in life,” said the father, “a sweet girl who did much for me.  That we had no children was a great disappointment to both of us, and when we saw that very likely we never would have any of our own, we found and adopted Lucy.  She would never have known the truth about that had not you come and compelled me to tell it.  But it’s all right now, and the Lord has been kinder to me than I deserve.”

    “’God moves in a mysterious way,
      His wonders to perform,’”

quoted Chester.

    “’He plants his footsteps in the sea
      And rides upon the storm,’”

mused the father.

At another time the father said to Chester: 

“My boy, it would please me if you would take my name.  You need not discard the one you already have, but add mine to it—­yours by all that’s right.”

“Yes, father.”

“I have no great fortune, but I have saved a little; and when I am gone, it will be yours and Lucy’s—­I’ll hear no objections to that—­for can’t you see, all that I can possibly do for you will only in part pay for the wrong I have done.  You say you have no definite plans for the future.  Then you will come with us to Kansas City, where I expect to take up again my labors in the ministry, at least for a time.”