bandonment, fourteen years before, of the reins
which had held an original nature in check. He might possibly have
merely, when renouncing his toil over the up-grade of life, slipped
back to his first estate, and thus have experienced in one sense no
change at all.

Many of Abel's old friends and neighbors were not fully convinced of
the desirability of his reappearance. When a man has been out of his
foothold in the crowd for fourteen years, he cannot regain it without
undue jostling of people's shoulders, and prejudices even. The
resurrection of the dead might have, if the truth were told,
uncomfortable and perplexing features for their nearest and dearest,
and Abel Edwards had been practically dead and buried.

"They were gettin' along real well before he come; of course, they're
glad to see him, but I dun'no' whether they'll get along as well with
him or not," proclaimed Mrs. Green of Westbrook, with the very
aggressiveness of frankness, and many looked assent.

Abel's wife had no question in her inmost heart of its utter
blessedness at his return, but her grief at his loss had never
healed. For that resolute feminine soul, which had fought on in spite
of it, her husband had died anew every morning of those fourteen
years when she awoke to consciousness of life; but it was different
with his children. For both of them the old wounds had closed; it was
now like tearing them asunder, for it is often necessary to revive an
old pain to fully appreciate a present joy. Had Jerome and Elmira
been older at the time of their father's disappearance, it would have
been otherwise, but as it was, their old love for him had been
obliterated, not merely by time and absence, but growth. It was
practically impossible, though they would not have owned it to
themselves, for them to love their father, when he first returned, as
they had used. They were painfully anxious to be utterly faithful,
and had an odd sort of tender but imaginative pity towards him, but
they could grasp no more. Both of them hesitated when they said
father; every time they returned home and found him there it was with
a sensation of surprise.

Three days after Abel Edwards's return came one of the severest
rain-storms ever known in Upham. The storm began before light; when
people first looked out in the morning their windows were glazed with
streaming wet, but it did not reach its full fury until eleven
o'clock. Then the rain fell in green and hissing sheet