t be before we are able to--to what you may call it?"

"Mount it?" said Uncle Richard, smiling sadly.

"Yes, uncle," cried Tom. "You don't know how I long to get it right, so
that we can have a look at the moon."

"It will be some time yet, my boy," replied Uncle Richard with a sigh;
and Tom felt startled, for it seemed to him as if the stern,
decisive-looking countenance before him had grown older, and the lines
in it more deeply-marked.

"Some time, uncle? Why, you said it was as good as finished."

"Yes, my boy, but duty first and pleasure after. While I have been
doing this little bit of business other things have crossed my mind. I
shall go up to town again to-morrow."

"To Uncle James's?" said Tom, after a pause.

"For one thing, yes. It is painful, my boy, but I feel that I ought to
go."

Tom was silent. He stood there feeling that his uncle was behaving
differently to him. For his words were cold and measured, and he did
not speak in the light, pleasant way of a couple of days back. At the
same time, it was not that there was a division between them, but as if
Uncle Richard treated him like one who shared with him a sad secret. He
was graver, and there was a confidential tone in his voice which made
the boy feel that he had grown older all at once.

"Shall you want me to go with you, uncle?" said Tom at last.

Uncle Richard looked at him intently.

"Do you feel as if you could go, Tom?" he asked.

Tom was silent; and then, as the searching eyes would take no denial,
and forced him to speak, the boy cleared his throat from something which
seemed to choke him, and spoke out hurriedly.

"Don't think me queer and awkward, or ungrateful, uncle," he cried.
"I'm ready to forgive Uncle James, but I never did, and never can feel,
as if I liked him. I would rather not go and see him, but if you say I
ought to I will."

"I do not say you ought to, Tom," said his uncle gravely; "but as his
brother, I feel that I must now he is so bad."

"You're not angry with me, uncle?"

"No, boy. I like the way in which you have spoken out. I could not
have stood it, Tom, if you had assumed anything and been hypocritical.
There, now, we will leave the subject. I shall go up again to-morrow
morning. You can spend your time in doing any little thing to make this
place more snug and home-like. I dare say I shall be back to-morrow
evening."

Tom uttered a sigh full of relief as they went back to the cottage