old sorrows may rise up and meet him, the very spirit of peace
shining out of its celestial eyes.

"Little Louise, you are very like--"

He stopped--and bending down, kissed her. In that kiss vanished for
ever the last shadow of his boyhood's love. Not that he forgot it--God
forbid that any good man should ever either forget or be ashamed of his
first love! But it and all its pain fled far away, back into the
sacred eternities of dreamland.

When, looking up at last, he saw a large, fair, matronly lady sitting
by his mother's sofa, Guy neither started nor turned pale. It was
another, and not his lost Louise. He rose and offered her his hand.

"You see, your little daughter has made friends with me already. She
is very like you; only she has Edwin's hair. Where is my brother
Edwin?"

"Here, old fellow. Welcome home."

The two brothers met warmly, nay, affectionately. Edwin was not given
to demonstration; but I saw how his features twitched, and how he
busied himself over the knots in his little girl's pinafore for a
minute or more. When he spoke again it was as if nothing had happened
and Guy had never been away.

For the mother, she lay with her arms folded, looking from one to the
other mutely, or closing her eyes with a faint stirring of the lips,
like prayer. It seemed as if she dared only THUS to meet her exceeding
joy.

Soon, Edwin and Louise left us for an hour or two, and Guy went on with
the history of his life in America and his partner who had come home
with him, and, like himself, had lost his all.

"Harder for him than for me; he is older than I am. He knew nothing
whatever of business when he offered himself as my clerk; since then he
has worked like a slave. In a fever I had he nursed me; he has been to
me these three years the best, truest friend. He is the noblest
fellow. Father, if you only knew--"

"Well, my son, let me know him. Invite the gentleman to Beechwood; or
shall I write and ask him? Maud, fetch me your mother's desk. Now
then, Guy--you are a very forgetful fellow still; you have never yet
told us your friend's name."

Guy looked steadily at his father, in his own straightforward way;
hesitated--then apparently made up his mind.

"I did not tell you because he wished me not; not till you understood
him as well as I do. You knew him yourself once--but he has wisely
dropped his title. Since he came over to me in America he has been
only Mr. William Ravenel."