"Take what you want. How timely has been my arrival!"

"My heart blesses you, my son, for this generous tender of aid in a
great extremity," said Mr. Howland in a trembling voice, as he
pushed back the roll of money. "But a crisis in my affairs has just
arrived, and the lifting of this note will not save me."

"How much will save you?" asked Andrew.

"I must have five or six thousand dollars in as many days," replied
Mr. Howland.

"This package of money will serve you then, for it contains ten
thousand dollars," said Andrew. "Take it."

"I cannot rob you thus," returned Mr. Howland, in a broken voice, as
he still drew back.

"Let me have that note, my friend." Andrew now turned to the Notary,
who did not hesitate to exchange the merchant's promise to pay, for
three five hundred dollar bills of a solvent bank.

A brief but earnest and affectionate interview then took place
between Andrew and his father, which closed with a request from the
former that he might be permitted to see his mother alone, and spend
with her the few hours that remained until evening, before the
latter joined them.

CHAPTER XIII.

IT is nine years since Mrs. Howland looked her last look on her
wayward, wandering boy, and eight years since any tidings came from
him to bless her yearning heart. She appears older by almost twenty
years, and moves about with a quiet drooping air, as if her heart
were releasing itself from its hold on earthly objects, and reaching
out its tendrils for a higher and surer support. With the exception
of Martha, the youngest, all her children have given her trouble.
Scarcely one of the sweet hopes cherished by her heart, when they
first lay in helpless innocence upon her bosom, have been realized.
Disappointment--disappointment--has come at almost every step of her
married life. The iron hand of her husband has crushed almost every
thing. Ah! how often and often, as she breathed the chilling air of
her own household, where all was constrained propriety, would her
heart go back to the sunny home in which were passed the happy days
of girlhood, and wish that something of the wisdom and gentleness
that marked her father's intercourse with his children could be
transferred to her uncompromising husband. But that was a vain wish.
The two men had been cast in far different moulds.

Martha, now in her eighteenth year, was more like her mother than
any of the children, and but for the light of her presence Mr