"You have, indeed, my son, and in a few days I'll be able to move out to the cottage, and you can then devote yourself wholly to your new career;" and, with the firm resolve to bury her bitter past at once, and forgetting self, to live wholly for her children, the noble, though sorrow-haunted woman, improved steadily each day, and one pleasant morning Captain Ryan Daly, the good-hearted officer, called for the trio in a carriage and drove them out to the cottage, which he playfully called Wizard Hall.
It was a charming little cottage, with large trees upon one side, a lawn sloping down to an inlet of the Long Island Sound, a vegetable garden, a stable, a meadow lot, in which an Alderney cow was grazing, a henery, with a large number of choice fowls, and beds of flowers that at once caught the eye of Pearl.
The place was in perfect condition, the garden flourishing, the house well and completely furnished, and the store-room and cellar well stocked, while the coal-bin and wood-shed were filled, the captain remarking that his brother had been a most liberal provider, and telling the story without a flush on his honest face, for he had placed all there himself.
"I shall soon get well here, Captain Daly, and I know not how to thank you for all your kindness," said Mrs. Raymond, the tears coming into her beautiful eyes.
"It is a kindness for me, madam, to have the place occupied by good tenants, and I must tell you that in yonder little cabin on the hill lives an old negro and his wife, who will do odds and ends for you when you need them for very small pay."
"Now, Wizard Will, I shall give you a week's leave to get settled in your new home, and then you can set to work raising your League of Boy Detectives, whom I shall put great faith in," and, promising to come out and dine some Sunday with them, the noble-hearted police captain—whose daily intercourse was with criminals, who was hourly amid desperate and tragic scenes, whose will was iron, whose nature knew no fear, but who had the heart of a woman for deeds of kindness—took his leave and returned to the city, leaving the mother and her children to make themselves perfectly at home in Wizard Hall.
[CHAPTER XXIV.—Conclusion.]
FTER a happy week spent at his little home on the Sound, Wizard Will returned to his duties in town. He had made friends with the old negro and negress in the cabin on the hill near the cottage, and had found them most willing to do all in their power to help his mother, and had secretly made an arrangement with them to look after matters in his absence, the old man to look after the horse, and his wife to milk the cow.