She was far away from her early home and friends, far away from her darling boy, in Baltimore.

James, her pride, was at sea, Elizabeth, a sweet little maiden of twelve, had left her to take that last voyage beyond another sea, and Abijah, without one word of farewell, with the silence of long years unbroken, he, too, also! had hoisted sail and was gone forever.

And now in her loneliness and sorrow, knowing that she, too, must shortly follow, a great yearning rose up in her poor wounded heart to see once more her child, the comfort and stay of her bitter life.

And as she had written to him her wish and longing, the boy went to her, saw the striking change, saw that the broken spirit of the saintly woman was day by day nearing the margin of the dark hereafter, into whose healing waters it would bathe and be whole again.

The unspeakable experience of mother and son, during this last meeting is not for you and me, reader, to look into.