quick reply from a withered, small,
but not ill-dressed old man, 'I only asked--'

'Let the lady pass,' said James, peremptorily, wishing to save his wife
from annoyance, 'it is of no use, I never look at petitions.'

'Surely he is not a beggar!' said Isabel, as he drew her on.

'You may be easy about him, my dear,' said James. 'He has laid hold of
Louis, who would swallow the whole Spanish legion of impostors. He will
be after us directly with a piteous story.'

Louis was after him, with a face more than half arch fun--'Jem, Jem, it
is your uncle!'

'Nonsense! How can you be so taken in! Don't go and disappoint
granny--I'll settle him.'

'Take care, Jem--it is Oliver, and no mistake! Why, he is as like you
as Pendragon blood can make him! Go and beg his pardon.'

James hastened down stairs, as Louis bounded up--sought Mrs. Frost in
the sitting-rooms, and, without ceremony, rushed up and knocked at the
bed-room door. Jane opened it.

'He is come!' cried Louis--'Oliver is come.'

Old Jane gave a shriek, and ran back wildly, clapping her hands. Her
mistress started forward--'Come!--where?'

'Here!--in the hall with Jem.'

He feared that he had been too precipitate, for she hid her face in her
hands; but it was the intensity of thanksgiving; and though her whole
frame was in a tremor, she flew rather than ran forward, never even
seeing Louis's proffered arm. He had only reached the landing-place,
when beneath he heard the greeting--'Mother, I can take you
home--Cheveleigh is yours.' But to her the words were drowned in her
own breathless cry--'My boy! my boy!' She saw, knew, heard nothing,
save that the son, missed and mourned for thirty-four years, was safe
within her arms, the longing void filled up. She saw not that the
stripling had become a worn and elderly man,--she recked not how he
came. He was Oliver, and she had him again! What was the rest to her?

Those words? They might be out of taste, but Fitzjocelyn guessed that
to speak them at the first meeting had been the vision of Oliver's
life--the object to which he had sacrificed everything. And yet how
chill and unheeded they fell!

Louis could have stood moralizing, but his heart had begun to throb at
the chance that Oliver brought tidings of Mary. He felt himself an
intrusive spectator, and hastened into the drawing-room, when Clara
nearly ran against him, but stood still. 'I beg your pardon, but what
is Isabel telling me? Is it