the sea.  She was prevented by main force and placed in a fainting condition in one of the boats, in which were three other persons, and who had alone escaped from the shipwrecked vessel.  In forty-nine hours this boat reached one of the Faroe Islands.  From there my daughter returned to me after a dangerous illness which lasted seven weeks, thanks to the devoted attentions of the sailor who saved her and who brought her to me.  This brave man, John Denman, died in my service in Asia Minor.

“We had but little hope that the baby had survived the shipwreck.  I, however, sought for him among the Faroe and Shetland Islands, and upon the Norwegian coast north of Bergen.  The idea of his cradle floating any further seemed impossible, but I did not give up my search for three years; and Noroe must be a very retired spot, or surely some inquiries would have been made there.  When I had given up all hope I devoted myself exclusively to my daughter, whose physical and moral health required great attention.  I succeeded in being sent to the Orient, and I sought, by traveling and scientific enterprises, to draw off her thoughts from her affliction.  She has been my inseparable companion sharing all my labors, but I have never been able to lighten her incurable grief.  We returned to France, and we now live in Paris in an old house which I own.

“Will it be my happiness to receive there my grandson, for whom we have mourned so many years?  This hope fills me with too much joy, and I dare not speak of it to my daughter, until I am assured of its truth; for, if it should prove false, the disappointment would be too cruel.

     “To-day is Monday:  they tell me at the post-office that by next
     Saturday I can receive your answer.”

Erik had hardly been able to read this, for the tears would obscure his sight.  He also felt afraid to yield too quickly to the hope which had been so suddenly restored to him.  He told himself that every detail coincided—­the dates agreed; all the events down to the most minute particulars.  He hardly dared to believe, however, that it could be true.  It was too much happiness to recover in a moment his family, his own mother, his country.  And such a country—­the one that he could have chosen above all because she possessed the grandeur, the graces, the supreme gifts of humanity—­because she had fostered genius, and the civilization of antiquity, and the discoveries and inventions of modern times.

He was afraid that he was only dreaming.  His hopes had been so often disappointed.  Perhaps the doctor would say something to dispel his illusions.  Before he did anything he would submit these facts to his cooler judgment.

The doctor read the documents attentively which he carried to him, but not without exclamations of joy and surprise.

“You need not feel the slightest doubt!” he said, when he had finished.  “All the details agree perfectly, even those that your correspondent omits to mention, the initials on the linen, the device engraved on the locket, which are the same as those on the letter.  My dear child, you have found your family this time.  You must telegraph immediately to your grandfather!”