"
I let her have her way. She brought out the clothes our own
child had worn and dressed the waif in them, rubbing his chilled
limbs, brushing his wet hair, laughing over him, mothering him.
She seemed like her old self.
For my own part, I was bewildered. All the questions I had not
asked before came crowding to my mind how. Whose child was this?
Whence had he come? What was the meaning of it all?
He was a pretty baby, fair and plump and rosy. When he was dried
and fed, he fell asleep in Josie's arms. She hung over him in a
passion of delight. It was with difficulty I persuaded her to
leave him long enough to change her wet clothes. She never asked
whose he might be or from where he might have come. He had been
sent to her from the sea; the dream-child had led her to him;
that was what she believed, and I dared not throw any doubt on
that belief. She slept that night with the baby on her arm, and
in her sleep her face was the face of a girl in her youth,
untroubled and unworn.
I expected that the morrow would bring some one seeking the baby.
I had come to the conclusion that he must belong to the "Cove"
across the harbor, where the fishing hamlet was; and all day,
while Josie laughed and played with him, I waited and listened
for the footsteps of those who would come seeking him. But they
did not come. Day after day passed, and still they did not come.
I was in a maze of perplexity.
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