ands at his head, and a
long stare at the speaker--"It's Tom, father. Don't you know me?"
repeated the voice.

Know him! How should he know him? tall, and brawny, and whiskered, with
pleasant blue eyes, and ruddy cheeks, and good nature streaming from his
whole face! Him who, so many years ago,--a beardless youth--had run off
to California after gold bubbles, and whom little good had been heard of
when anything at all was heard of him. Know him? Of course he did not;
but, as he sat down beside him on the settee and shook his old hand,
David put his arms about his neck, and hung his head upon his bosom, and
saw, in imagination, the thriftless boy of long ago whom he loved for
all his waywardness.

Tom's strong arms soon bore him to his old seat near the fire, and, for
the first time, David's wandering eye noticed the bower of green holly
and red-berried mistletoe that decked the room. General Washington was
loaded with it. The old clock, actually striking in a cheerier voice the
hour of nine, had its full share. The dresser hid in festoons of it.
Even David's chair had its sprig. But what was that on the floor? An
opened trunk, like a cloven pomegranate, displaying within rich trinkets
that many a lady might covet?

"Wha--what's it all mean, girls? Tell me, Little Scout," said David,
catching her hand. "What happened to me? I thought I came home--home to
tell you Griffin threw me out in the snow, and called me a thief, and
how all of them scowled and cried out at me, and I thought----" then,
looking at the tall man, he cried again,--

"Tom, is it so? Is it so, my dear boy?"

"Yes, father," said Tom, slowly, to calm him, "it is, happily, all so."

Then his little daughter, who had stood by his side through it all,
kissed him, and said,--

"Come, father, look at the pretty presents Tom has brought us and you.
See here's a beautiful new coat hanging on your peg for you, and Molly
and Polly are as gay as any ladies," and she led him, tottering and
feeble, to the loaded table--no longer ashamed of its defaced back
beneath the pile of gifts it bore.

Then Mr. Tripple, hand in hand with the unresisting Polly, and Molly,
and Tom, an unbroken circuit of cheery faces that electrified David
Dubbs into a wrinkled smile in spite of lingering grief, clustered
around the table and exclaimed aloud with admiration at the gifts Tom
had brought.

But David, still overshadowed by the events of the afternoon, said, in a
quivering