t and splendid a thing as this home-coming of Marian's father,
and when the churchgoers had all gone by, the two went up street
together, hand in hand. At the door of the brick house they paused.

"Tell them I am here and ask them if I may come in, Marian," said
her father, as he stood on the steps.

Marian went in, and entered the sitting-room. Her grandmother was
taking off her bonnet. "It was a good sermon, my dear," she was
saying to her husband. "Peace and good-will to all men, not to
some, but to all, our own first." She smoothed out her gloves
thoughtfully. "Eight years," she murmured, "eight years."

Marian stood in the doorway. "Papa has come," she said simply. "He
is on the door-step, but he won't come in till you say he may."

With a trembling little cry her grandmother ran to the door. Mr.
Otway grasped the back of the chair behind which he was standing.
His head was bowed and he was white to the lips. "Tell him to come
in," he said.

Marian ran out to see her grandmother, her grave, quiet, dignified
grandmother, sobbing in her son's arms, and he kissing her bowed
head and murmuring loving words to her.

"Grandpa says please come in," said Marian giving the message with
added politeness, and with one arm around his mother and the other
grasping Marian's hand, Ralph Otway entered his father's house to
meet the hand clasp of one who for more than eight years had
forbidden him entrance.

The remainder of Marian's day was spent in making visits to Mrs.
Hunt's parlor and to her grandmother's sitting-room. When the
grown-ups' talk began to grow uninteresting and herself unnoticed
she would slip away to gloat over the Christmas tree, then when she
had firmly fixed in her mind just what hung on this side and on
that, she would go back to the sitting-room to nestle down by her
father, or to turn over the contents of her stocking.

It was during this process that she heard part of a conversation
which interested her very much. "Herbert Robbins wrote me not
long ago to ask if I could suggest a fitting man for one of the
engineering departments of the college," said Grandpa Otway. "I told
him I would consider the matter, and if any one occurred to me I
would let him know. How would you like the work, Ralph?" he went on
in his measured tones. "Revell is not far away; it is a progressive
college in a pleasant community."

Marian laid down her stocking and came nearer.

"I should like to look into the matter,"