away.

Poor Jennie did all the mourning for the lad; his father and brothers
were in the midst of a new experiment for making wool water-proof, and
pretty Mary Butterworth did not love David as David wished her to love
him. It was Jennie only who hung weeping on his neck and watched him
walk proudly and sorrowfully away over the hills into the wide, wide
world beyond.

Then for many, many long years no more was heard of "Lile Davie
Denton." The old schoolmaster died and Christopher followed him. But
the Denton brothers remained together. However, when men make saving
money the sole end of their existence, their life soon becomes as
uninteresting as the multiplication table, and people ceased to care
about the Denton farm, especially as Jennie married a wealthy squire
over the mountains, and left her brothers to work out alone their new
devices and economies.

Jennie's marriage was a happy one, but she did not forget her brother.
There was in Esthwaite Grange a young man who bore his name and who
was preparing for a like career. And often Jennie Esthwaite told to
the lads and lasses around her knees the story of their "lile uncle,"
whom every one but his own kin had loved, and who had gone away to the
Indies and never come back again. "Lile Davie" was the one bit of
romance in Esthwaite Grange.

Jennie's brothers had never been across the "fells" that divided
Denton from Esthwaite; therefore, one morning, twenty-seven years
after Davie's departure, she was astonished to see Matt coming slowly
down the Esthwaite side. But she met him with hearty kindness, and
after he had been rested and refreshed he took a letter from his
pocket and said, "Jennie, this came from Davie six months syne, but I
thought then it would be seeking trouble to answer it."

"Why, Matt, this letter is directed to me! How dared you open and keep
it?"

"Dared, indeed! That's a nice way for a woman to speak to her eldest
brother!' Read it, and then you'll see why I kept it from you."

Poor Jennie's eyes filled fuller at every line. He was sick and
wounded and coming home to die, and wanted to see his old home and
friends once more.

"O Matt! Matt!" she cried; "how cruel, how shameful, not to answer
this appeal."

"Well, I did it for the best; but it seems I have made a mistake. Sam
and I both thought an ailing body dovering round the hearthstone and
doorstone was not to be thought of--and nobody to do a hand's turn but
old Elsie, who is ne