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."