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 Five minutes later the wanderer, his desire for naval adventure clean forgotten, found mamma and the friendly stranger sitting side by side in a little arbour, and clambered without hesitation on the poet's knee.

"Mamma," he said, "this gentleman found me when I was going to sea to be a cabin-boy."

"A true bill," said the poet. He was so bright and smiling, and in spite of his grizzled temples looked so young again that, for the time at least, the last ten years of heartache and of loneliness might have been clean wiped away from him. The little widow was smiling too, gravely and tenderly, and the roses of her youth were back again.

"I say," said Master Bob, boldly, dividing the poet's beard and looking up at him. "I told you what my name was. What's yours?"

"Mine?" asked the poet. "I am papa."

"Is that true, mamma?"

"Yes," said the little widow, taking the boy from his protector’s knees and hiding her flushed face against his cheek. "It's quite true."

"Well," said Bob, with an accent of decision, "I call that jolly."