"'Tisn't never Master Harry! Bless me!" as Harry's hand gave him sensible proof; "when we had given you up for lost!"

"My father well?" Harry asked, hurrying the words one over the other.

"Quite well, sir, but he never held up his head since he heard it, and poor Miss Mary has so moped about. If ever I thought to see the like--"

"So they did not get my letter, but I can't stop. Jennings will tell you. Take care of him. Come, Daisy--" for he had kept her unwilling hand all the time. "But what's that for?" pointing to the black ribbons, and, stopping short, startled.

"Because of poor Harry," said the bewildered child.

"Oh, that's right!" cried he, striding on, and dragging her in a breathless run, as he threw open the well-known doors; and, she escaping from him, hid her face in Mary's lap, screaming, "He says he is Harry!

he says he is not drowned!"

At the same moment Ethel was in his arms, and his voice was sobbing, "Ethel! Mary! home! Where's papa?" One moment's almost agonising joy in the certainty of his identity! but ere she could look or think, he was crying, "Mary! oh, Ethel, see--"

Mary had not moved, but sat as if turned to stone, with breath suspended, wide-stretched eyes, and death-like cheeks--Ethel sprang to her, "Mary, Mary dear, it is Harry! It is himself! Don't you see? Speak to her, Harry."

He seemed almost afraid to do so, but, recovering himself, exclaimed, "Mary, dear old Polly, here I am! Oh, won't you speak to me?" he added piteously, as he threw his arm round her and kissed her, startled at the cold touch of her cheek.

The spell seemed broken, and, with a wild hoarse shriek that rang through the house, she struggled to regain her breath, but it would only come in painful, audible catches, as she held Harry's hand convulsively.

"What have I done?" he exclaimed, in distress.

"What's this! Who is this frightening my dear?" was old nurse's exclamation, as she and James came at the outcry.

"Oh, nurse, what have I done to her?" repeated Harry.

"It is joy--it is sudden joy!" said Ethel. "See, she is better now--"

"Master Harry! Well, I never!" and James, "with one wring of the hand, retreated, while old nurse was nearly hugged to death, declaring all the time that he didn't ought to have come in such a way, terrifying every one out of their senses! and as for poor Miss May--

"Where is she?" cried Harry, starting at the sight of the vacant sofa.

"Only upstairs," said Ethel; "but where's Alan? Is not he come?"

"Oh, Ethel, don't you know?" His face told but too plainly.

"Nurse! nurse, how shall we tell her?" said Ethel.

"Poor dear!" exclaimed nurse, sounding her tongue on the roof of her mouth. "She'll never abear it without her papa. Wait for him, I should say. But bless me, Miss Mary, to see you go on like that, when Master Harry is come back such a bonny man!"

"I'm better now," said Mary, with an effort. "Oh, Harry! speak to me again."

"But Margaret!" said Ethel, while the brother was holding Mary in his embrace, and she lay tremulous with the new ecstasy upon his breast--"but Margaret. Nurse, you must go up, or she will suspect. I'll come when I can; speak quietly. Oh! poor Margaret! If Richard would but come in!"

Ethel walked up and down the room, divided between a tumult of joy, grief, dread, and perplexity. At that moment a little voice said at the door, "Please, Margaret wants Harry to come up directly."

They looked one upon another in consternation. They had never thought of the child, who, of course, had flown up at once with the tidings.

"Go up, Miss Ethel," said nurse.

"Oh! nurse, I can't be the first. Come, Harry, come."

Hand-in-hand, they silently ascended the stairs, and Ethel pushed open the door. Margaret was on her couch, her whole form and face in one throb of expectation.

She looked into Harry's face--the eagerness flitted like sunshine on the hillside, before a cloud, and, without a word, she held out her arms.

He threw himself on his knees, and her fingers were clasped among his thick curls, while his frame heaved with suppressed sobs, "Oh, if he could only have come back to you."

"Thank God," she said; then slightly pushing him back, she lay holding his hand in one of hers, and resting the other on his shoulder, and gazing in silence into his face. Each was still--she was gathering strength--he dreaded word or look.

"Tell me how and where;" she said at last.

"It was in the Loyalty Isles; it was fever--the exertions for us. His head was lying here," and he pointed to his own breast. "He sent his love to you--he bade me tell you there would be meeting by and by, in the haven where he would be.--I laid his head in the grave--under the great palm--I said some of the prayers--there are Christians round it."

He said this in short disconnected phrases, often pausing to gather voice, but forced to resume, by her inquiring looks and pressure of his hand.

She asked no more. "Kiss me," she said, and when he had done so, "Thank you, go down, please, all of you. You have brought great relief. Thank you. But I can't talk yet. You shall tell me the rest by and by."

She sent them all away, even Ethel, who would have lingered.

"Go to him, dearest. Let me be alone. Don't be uneasy. This is peace--but go."

Ethel found Mary and Harry interlaced into one moving figure, and Harry greedily asking for his father and Norman, as if famishing for the sight of them. He wanted to set out to seek the former in the town, but his movements were too uncertain, and the girls clung to the newly-found, as if they could not trust him away from them. They wandered about, speaking, all three at random, without power of attending to the answers. It was enough to see him, and touch him; they could not yet care where he had been.

Dr. May was in the midst of them ere they were aware. One look, and he flung his arms round his son, but, suddenly letting him go, he burst away, and banged his study door. Harry would have followed.

"No, don't," said Ethel; then, seeing him disappointed, she came nearer, and murmured, "'He entered into his chamber and--'"

Harry silenced her with another embrace, but their father was with them again, to verify that he had really seen his boy, and ask, alas! whether Alan were with Margaret. The brief sad answer sent him to see how it was with her. She would not let him stay; she said it was infinite comfort, and joy was coming, but she would rather be still, and not come down till evening.

Perhaps others would fain have been still, could they have borne an instant's deprivation of the sight of their dear sailor, while greetings came thickly on him. The children burst in, having heard a report in the town, and Dr. Spencer waited at the door for the confirmation; but when Ethel would have flown out to him, he waved his hand, shut the door, and hurried away, as if a word to her would have been an intrusion.

The brothers had been summoned by a headlong apparition of Will Adams in Cocksmoor school, shouting that Master Harry was come home; and Norman's long legs out-speeding Richard, had brought him back, flushed, and too happy for one word, while, "Well, Harry," was Richard's utmost, and his care for Margaret seemed to overpower everything else, as he went up, and was not so soon sent away.

Words were few downstairs. Blanche and Aubrey agreed that they thought people would have been much happier, but, in fact, the joy was oppressive from very newness. Ethel roamed about, she could not sit still without feeling giddy, in the strangeness of the revulsion. Her father sat, as if a word would break the blest illusion; and Harry stood before each of them in turn, as if about to speak, but turned his address into a sudden caress, or blow on the shoulder, and tried to laugh. Little Gertrude, not understanding; the confusion, had taken up her station under the table, and peeped out from beneath the cover.

There was more composure as they sat at dinner, and yet there was very little talking or eating. Afterwards Dr. May and Norman exultingly walked away, to show their Harry to Dr. Spencer and Mr. Wilmot; and Ethel would gladly have tried to calm herself, and recover the balance of her mind, by giving thanks where they were due; but she did not know what to do with her sisters. Blanche was wild, and Mary still in so shaky a state of excitement, that she went off into mad laughing, when Blanche discovered that they were in mourning for Harry.

Nothing would satisfy Blanche but breaking in on Margaret, and climbing to the top of the great wardrobe to disinter the coloured raiment, beseeching that each favourite might be at once put on, to do honour to Harry. Mary chimed in with her, in begging for the wedding merinos--would not Margaret wear her beautiful blue?

"No, my dear, I cannot," said Margaret gently.

Mary looked at her and was again in a flood of tears, incoherently protesting, together with Ethel, that they would not change.

"No, dears," said Margaret. "I had rather you did so. You must not be unkind to Harry. He will not think I do not welcome him. I am only too glad that Richard would not let my impatience take away my right to wear this."

Ethel knew that it was for life.

Mary could not check her tears, and would go on making heroic protests against leaving off her black, sobbing the more at each. Margaret's gentle caresses seemed to make her worse, and Ethel, afraid that Margaret's own composure would be overthrown, exclaimed, "How can you be so silly? Come away!" and rather roughly pulled her out of the room, when she collapsed entirely at the top of the stairs, and sat crying helplessly.