uld you mind shaking hands again?"

Hildegarde held out her hand gladly, and laughed and blushed when her
cousin raised it to his lips in the graceful European fashion.

"You have learned something besides violin-playing, Jack," she said. "If
any one had proposed your kissing hands two years ago, what would you
have done?"

"Taken to the woods," replied Jack, promptly. "But--well, they all do it
there, of course; and I saw the _gnadige Frau_--Frau J.--expected it
when I went to dine there, so--so I learned. But all the time, Hilda, I
thought I was only learning so that I could kiss your mother's
hand,--and yours!"

"Dear lad!" said Hilda. "Mamma will be pleased; she always wishes people
would be 'more graceful in their greetings.' Can't you hear her say it?
But why do we stand here, when she is waiting for us in her room? She
has rheumatism to-day, so I would not let her come down, poor darling;
and here I am keeping you all to myself, like the highwayman I am."

"Yes, I always thought you were cut out for a highwayman," said Jack.
"Come along, then! I have a thousand things to tell you both."

Hand in hand, like happy children, the two ran up-stairs. Mrs. Grahame
was waiting with open arms. Indeed, she had been the first to hear the
notes of the violin; and her cry--"Hilda! Jack is come! our boy is
come!"--had brought Hildegarde flying from the recesses of the
linen-closet. Her eyes were full of happy tears; and when Jack bent to
kiss her hand, she folded him warmly in her arms, and pressed more than
one kiss on his broad forehead.

"My boy!" she said. "My boy has come back to me! Hilda, it is your
brother; do you understand? It is as if my little son, who went away so
long ago, had been sent back to me."

"Yes, Mother," said Hildegarde, softly. "I know; we both know, Jack and
I. Dear Mother, blessed one! let the tears come a little; it will do you
good."

They were silent for a little. The two young people pressed close to the
elder woman, who felt the years surge up around her like a flood; but
there was no bitterness in the waters, only sweet and sacred depths of
love and memory. The boy and girl, filled with a passionate longing to
cheer and comfort her whom they loved so dearly, felt perhaps more pain
than she did, for they were too young to have seen the smile on the
face of sorrow.

But now Mrs. Grahame was smiling again.

"Dears!" she said. "Dear children! They are such happy tears, you must
not m