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 she should go to Boston to see him. "Grandfather
Jamie," the child called him. "That was before mamma went away."
Mr. Bowdoin looked at the black dress, and then at Harleston; and
Harleston nodded his head sadly.
"Well, Mercedes, we will go very soon. Isn't your name Mercedes?" said
the old gentleman, seeing the little maid look surprised.
"My name is Sarah, but mamma called me Sadie," lisped the child.
Mr. Bowdoin and Harleston looked each at the other, and had the same
thought. It was as if the mother, who had so darkened (or shall we,
after all, say lightened?) Jamie's life, had given up her strange
Spanish name in giving him back this child, and remembered but the
homely "Sadie" he once had called her by. But by this time old lady
Bowdoin had the little maid upon her lap, and James was dragging
Harley away to tell his story. And old Mr. Bowdoin even broke his rule
by taking an after-breakfast cigar, and puffed it furiously.
"I got to New Orleans by rail and river, as you know. There I inquired
after St. Clair, and had no difficulty in finding out about him. He
had been a sort of captain of marines in an armed blockade-runner, and
he was well known in New Orleans as a gambler, a slave-dealer"--
Mr. Bowdoin grunted.
--"almost what they call a thug. But he had not been killed instantly;
he died in a city hospital."
"There is no doubt about his being dead?" queried Mr. Bowdoin
anxiously.
"Not the slightest. I saw his grave. But, unhappily, Mercedes is dead,
too."
"All is for the best," said Mr. Bowdoin philosophically. "Perhaps
you'd have married her."
"Perhaps I should," said Commander Harley simply. "Well, I found her
at the hospital where he had died, and she died too. This little girl
was all she had left. I brought her back. As you see, she is like her
mother, only gentler, and her mother brought her up to reverence old
Jamie above all things on earth."
"It was time," said Mr. Bowdoin dryly.
"She told me St. Clair had got into trouble in New York; and old
Jamie had sent them some large sum,--over twenty thousand dollars."