d to see you, Mr. Roy. How long have you been in England?
Are these your little boys?"

Without answering, he took her hand--a quiet friendly grasp, just as it
used to be. And so, without another word, the gulf of fifteen--seventeen
years was overleaped, and Robert Roy and Fortune Williams had met once
more.

If anybody had told her when she rose that morning what would happen
before night, and happen so naturally, too, she would have said it was
impossible. That, after a very few minutes, she could have sat there,
talking to him as to any ordinary acquaintance, seemed incredible, yet it
was truly so.

"I was in great doubts whether the Miss Williams who, they told me, lived
here was yourself or some other lady; but I thought I would take the
chance. Because, were it yourself, I thought, for the sake of old times,
you might be willing to advise me concerning my two little boys, whom I
have brought to St. Andrews for their education."

"Your sons, are they?"

"No. I am not married."

There was a pause, and then he told the little fellows to go and look out
of the window, while he talked with Miss Williams. He spoke to them in a
fatherly tone; there was nothing whatever of the young man left in him
now. His voice was sweet, his manner grave, his whole appearance
unquestionably "middle-aged."

"They are orphans. Their name is Roy, though they are not my relatives,
or so distant that it matters nothing. But their father was a very good
friend of mine, which matters a great deal. He died suddenly, and his
wife soon after, leaving their affairs in great confusion. Hearing this,
far up in the Australian bush, where I have been a sheep-farmer for some
years, I came round by Shanghai, but too late to do more than take these
younger boys and bring them home. The rest of the family are disposed
of. These two will be henceforward mine. That is all."

A very little "all", and wholly about other people; scarcely a word about
himself. Yet he seemed to think it sufficient, and as if she had no
possible interest in hearing more.

Cursorily he mentioned having received her letter, which was "friendly
and kind;" that it had followed him to Australia, and then back to
Shanghai. But his return home seemed to have been entirely without
reference to it--or to her.

So she let all pass, and accepted things as they were. It was enough.
When a ship-wrecked man sees land--ever so barren a land, ever so
desolate a shore-