Then there was a family mystery about Mr. Walton that fascinated Aunt Stanshy.  He lived with his old white-haired mother, and there were hints and whispers that the two mourned over a once wayward and now absent member of the family.  It leaked out that this was a son younger than Mr. Walton, and he had married a beautiful foreign lady whom the clergyman loved also, but had relinquished to the younger brother.  This younger son was off somewhere on the sea, it was whispered; but he had a child ashore.  On stormy days, it was noticed that the white-haired mother would watch the steeple, which consisted of a series of diminutive houses rising one above the other, as if ambitious to fly, but finally relinquishing the task into the hands or wings rather of a gilded weather-cock.  The mother would watch the pigeons flying into their hiding-places in the steeple, seeking a refuge from the wild storm, and then her eyes would be lifted higher to the weather-vane, as if seeking for news about the sea-wind.  Still higher went her thoughts—­to God.

“She’s thinking of him, that son,” said the observant neighbors, who never knowingly gave up a chance to see something.  To Aunt Stanshy this bit of mystery only made Mr. Walton all the more interesting.

Mr. Walton thought the next day he would fish for scholars in the Grimes neighborhood, where Tony lived.  Billy and Rick, or “the governor,” as the club boys more generally called him now, lived in a long, low-roofed building that had two green doors.  One door led into the home where lived Simes Badger when off duty at the light house.  His wife took care of Tony.  In the other part of the house lived Billy and the “governor” with Jotham and Ann Grimes.  Billy was the child of Jotham and Ann.  The “governor’s” parents lived in Dakota, but kept him at the East for the sake of an education in its better schools.  It was after dark when Mr. Walton chanced to reach the long, low-roofed house, and “rap-rap” went his vigorous knuckles against green door number one.

“Who’s there?” sang out a boyish voice within.

“Tush, tush, Tony!  Wait till I come,” said Simes from his little bedroom at one side of the kitchen.  He was off duty, Jotham Grimes having gone to the light-house.  “It may be some sailor who wants me,” added Simes.  Mr. Walton, having heard a boy’s voice, concluded its owner must still be at the door, and he announced his errand.

“It’s rather late to call, but I wanted to know if you wouldn’t like to come into our Sunday-school?”

“No, your old Sunday-school may go to the bottom of the sea,” was the gruff reply of the disappointed Simes, who did not know his caller.

Mr. Walton felt that it might be prudent at that hour to withdraw, but he did not relinquish his intention to secure Tony; and Tony finally came to school.

The boy exceedingly interested the minister.  “Where have I seen that face?” asked Mr. Walton, and with bowed head he sat in his study brooding over the problem, looking intently down as if trying to make out a pearl at the bottom of the sea.