replied Anderson. He crossed the hall to his
room lined with books, with the narrow couch. It hardly seemed like a
bedroom, and indeed he spent much of his time, when not at the store,
there. He resumed his seat in the well-worn easy-chair beside his
hearth, upon which smouldered a fire, and waited. He still felt
dazed. He had that doubt of his own identity which comes to us at
times, and which is primeval under stress of a great surprise. The
old nursery rhyme of the old woman who had her petticoats clipped and
was not sure of herself, has a truth in it which dates from the
beginning of things. Anderson, sitting precisely as he had been
sitting before in the same chair by the same hearth--he had even
taken up the same book in which he had thought to read a chapter
after his letters were finished, before retiring--was as completely
removed from his former state as if he had been translated into
another planet. He looked around the long room, which had a dark,
rich coloring from the backs of old books, and some dark red
hangings, and even that had a curious appearance of unsubstantiality
to him. Or was it substantiality. Suddenly it seemed to him that
heretofore he had seen it all through a glass, and now with his
natural eyes. He had attained a height a nature whence the prospect
is untrammelled by imaginations and shows in the clear light of
reality. He thought of the girl whom his mother was coddling, tucking
into bed as if she were a baby, and such a wave of tenderness and
protection came over him that he felt newly vivified by it. It was as
if his very soul put forth arms and wings of love and defence.

"The dear little girl!" he thought to himself--"the dear little girl!"

The thought that she was safe under his roof, away from all fancied
and real terror, filled him with such a joy that he could scarcely
contain it. He imagined her nestling in that warm little bed out of
his mother's room, and the satisfaction that he might have felt had
she been his child instead of his sweetheart, filled him with pure
delight. He tried to imagine her terrors, her young-girl terrors,
alone in that house, her panic running alone through the night
streets, and he even magnified it through inability to understand it.
He said to himself that she might have almost gone mad, and again
that sublime joy, that immense sense of the protection and tenderness
of love, filled his soul, which seemed to put forth wings. Then the
door opened