esk, in a kind of
dreamy abstraction. All effort was felt to be useless, and he made
none. At dinner time he went home, and sat at the table, silent and
gloomy; but he scarcely tasted food. After the meal, he returned to
his store--a faint hope springing up in his mind that Edward might
have submitted the aid he had asked for so humbly by private hand,
or through some broker in the city, and that it would yet arrive in
time to save him. Alas! this proved a vain hope. Three o'clock came,
and the unredeemed note still lay in bank.

"It is all over!" murmured the unhappy man, as like the strokes of a
hammer upon his heart fell the three distinct chimes that rung the
knell of his business life.

Taking up a newspaper, and affecting to read, Mr. Howland sat for
nearly an hour awaiting the notorial visit, which seemed long
delayed. At last he saw a man enter and come walking back toward the
desk at which he sat. Not doubting but that it was the Notary, he
was preparing to answer--"I can't take it, up," when a well-dressed
stranger, with a dark, sun-burnt, countenance that had in it many
familiar lines, passed before him, and fixed his eyes with an
earnest look upon his face. For a few moments the two men regarded
each other in silence, and then the stranger reached out his hand
and uttered the single word--

"Father!"

"Andrew!" responded Mr. Howland, catching eagerly hold of the
offered hand; "Andrew! my son! my son! are you yet alive?"

The great deep of the old man's heart was suddenly broken up, and he
was overwhelmed by the rising floods of emotion. His lips quivered;
there was a convulsive play of all the muscles of his face; and then
large tears came slowly over his cheeks. The man of iron will was
melted down; he wept like a child, and his son wept with him.

Scarcely had the first strong emotions created by this meeting
exhausted themselves, when another person entered the store, and
advanced to where the father and son were standing. He held a small
slip of paper in his hand, and as he came up to Mr. Howland, he
said, holding up the piece of paper--

"Your note for fifteen hundred dollars remains unpaid."

"I'm sorry, but I can't lift it," replied Mr. Howland, in a low
voice that he wished not to reach the ear of his son; but Andrew
heard the answer distinctly, and instantly drawing a large pocket
book from his pocket, took out a roll of bank bills which he reached
to his father, saying, as he did so--