the four years' accumulation of dust. Richard took the book
fiercely in both hands, and with a single mighty tug tore it from top
to bottom, and threw the fragments into the fire-place.

A moment later, on the way down-stairs, he encountered his kinsman
ascending.

"Ah, you have come back!" was Mr. Shackford's grim greeting after
a moment's hesitation.

"Yes," said Richard, with embarrassment, though he had made up his
mind not to be embarrassed by his cousin.

"I can't say I was looking for you. You might have dropped me a
line; you were politer when you left. Why do you come back, and why
did you go away?" demanded the old man, with abrupt fierceness. The
last four years had bleached him and bent him and made him look very
old.

"I didn't like the idea of Blandmann & Sharpe, for one thing,"
said Richard, "and I thought I liked the sea."

"And did you?"

"No, sir! I enjoyed seeing foreign parts, and all that."

"Quite the young gentleman on his travels. But the sea didn't
agree with you, and now you like the idea of Blandmann & Sharpe?"

"Not the least in the world, I assure you!" cried Richard. "I take
to it as little as ever I did."

"Perhaps that is fortunate. But it's going to be rather difficult
to suit your tastes. What _do_ you like?"

"I like you, cousin Lemuel; you have always been kind to me--in
your way," said poor Richard, yearning for a glimmer of human warmth
and sympathy, and forgetting all the dreariness of his uncared-for
childhood. He had been out in the world, and had found it even
harder-hearted than his own home, which now he idealized in the first
flush of returning to it. Again he saw himself, a blond-headed little
fellow with stocking down at heel, climbing the steep staircase, or
digging in the clay at the front gate with the air full of the breath
of lilacs. That same penetrating perfume, blown through the open
hall-door as he spoke, nearly brought the tears to his eyes. He had
looked forward for years to this coming back to Stillwater. Many a
time, as he wandered along the streets of some foreign sea-port, the
rich architecture and the bright costumes had faded out before him,
and given place to the fat gray belfry and slim red chimneys of the
humble New England village where he was born. He had learned to love
it after losing it; and now he had struggled back through countless
trials and disasters to find no welcome.

"Cousin Lemuel," said Richard gently, "only just us two ar