The door opened. There was the rustle of a gown; Ayacanora sprang from him with a little cry, and stood, half-trembling, half-defiant, as if to say, “He is mine now; no one dare part him from me!”

“Who is it?” asked Amyas.

“Your mother.”

“You see that I am bringing forth fruits meet for repentance, mother,” said he, with a smile.

He heard her approach. Then a kiss and a sob passed between the women; and he felt Ayacanora sink once more upon his bosom.

“Amyas, my son,” said the silver voice of Mrs. Leigh, low, dreamy, like the far-off chimes of angels’ bells from out the highest heaven, “fear not to take her to your heart again; for it is your mother who has laid her there.”

“It is true, after all,” said Amyas to himself. “What God has joined together, man cannot put asunder.”

. . . . . . .

From that hour Ayacanora’s power of song returned to her; and day by day, year after year, her voice rose up within that happy home, and soared, as on a skylark’s wings, into the highest heaven, bearing with it the peaceful thoughts of the blind giant back to the Paradises of the West, in the wake of the heroes who from that time forth sailed out to colonize another and a vaster England, to the heaven- prospered cry of Westward-Ho!