So Susan went and found Rachel, and brought her home to live with them all. The poor little orphan was a bright, joyous child. She had a strange hope that she should see her grandfather again; that he was not lost; for he had told her many stories of his escape from great dangers at sea.
"Why, grandfather was on a wreck once a whole week," said Rachel: "he was cast away once on an island where he had to live on clams a long while before he was rescued. I think we shall hear from him soon."
One day Joe caught a fine basket of perch from the rocks, and went round to try and sell them. But all the folks in the village told him they could get as many fish as they wanted without buying them. So Joe walked off to a town four miles away from the sea, and there he sold his fish.
He told a kind blind lady, to whom he sold some, that his sister wanted to get work, so that she could help a poor little orphan-girl. The kind lady sent Susan half a dozen handkerchiefs to hem; and the next morning Susan rose early, and sewed by candle-light, while the other children were in bed and asleep.
For three years the poor Bourne family gave Rachel a nice happy home in their little house; and they would have kept her longer, but one day, while the children were all playing on the beach, they heard a great shouting, and ran to see what it was about.
It was all in honor of Grandfather Harrison. He had come back, as Rachel had always said he would. He had been picked up at sea in his sinking boat by a ship bound for Australia. The old man was carried to that far country. He went to the mines, and helped some men dig gold. He made a good deal of money, thinking it would be a good thing if he could only be rich enough to send his dear little grand-daughter to school.
But Rachel was not the only one who was benefited by his good fortune. The Bournes shared in it. Joe and Susan, and all the rest of the children, were sent to school also; and they studied with a will. It was always a happy thought to Rachel that the great kindness of these good people did not miss its reward even in this life.
Ida Fay.