Page:Stimson--Pirate gold.djvu/208

198 from the window. Father and son ran to the door, in the early spring morning, and saw a carriage stop, and Harley step out of it, and then—a little girl.

  The image of Mercedes she was; and the old gentleman caught her up and kissed her. He had a way with all children; and James thought this little maid was just as he remembered her mother, that day, now so long gone, on the old Long Wharf, when the sailing-vessel came in from the harbor,—the day he was engaged to marry his Abby. Old Mrs. Bowdoin stood beside, rubbing her spectacles; and then the old man set the child upon his lap, and told her soon she should see her grandfather. And the child began to prattle to him in a good English that had yet a color of something French or Spanish; and she wore a black dress.

"But perhaps you have never heard of your old grandfather?"

The child said that "mamma" had often talked about him, and had said that some day 