-are you willing to receive me?" and Adah had only
answered by a warm pressure of the hand she held in hers and by the
tears which shone in her brown eyes.

It was a great trial to Adah to face the crowd they found assembled at
the depot, but Irving, Hugh, and Alice all helped to screen her from
observation, and almost before she was aware of it she found herself
safe in the carriage which effectually hid her from view. Slowly the
procession moved through the village, the foot passengers keeping time
to the muffled drum, whose solemn beats had never till that morning been
heard in the quiet streets. The wide gate which led into the grounds of
Terrace Hill was opened wide, and the black hearse passed in, followed
by the other carriages, which wound around the hill and up to the huge
building where badges of mourning were hung out--mourning for the only
son, the youngest born, the once pride and pet of the stately woman who
watched the coming of that group with tear-dimmed eyes, holding upon her
lap the little boy whose father they were bringing in, dead, coffined
for the grave. Not for the world would that high-bred woman have been
guilty of an impropriety, and so she sat in her own room, while Charlie
Millbrook met the bearers in the hall and told them where to deposit
their burden.

In the same room where we first saw him on the night of his return from
Europe, they left him, and went their way, while to Dixson and Pamelia
was accorded the honor of first welcoming Adah, whom they treated with
as much deference as if she had never been with them in any capacity
save that of mistress. She had changed since they last saw her--was
wonderfully improved, they said to each other as they left her at the
door of the room, where Mrs. Richards, with her two older daughters, was
waiting to receive her. But if the servants were struck with the air of
dignity and cultivation which Adah acquired during her tour in Europe,
how much more did this same air impress the haughty ladies waiting for
her appearance, and feeling a little uncertain as to how they should
receive her. Any doubts, however, which they had upon this subject were
dispelled the moment she entered the room, and they saw at a glance that
it was not the timid, shrinking Rose Markham with whom they had to deal,
but a woman as wholly self-possessed as themselves, and one with whose
bearing even their critical eyes would find no fault. She would not
suffer them to patroniz