come from Plymouth, with the words,
'Stoneborough, 5.25.'

In ignorance as to the state of the traveller, and expecting to find
him in a condition requiring great care and watching, Dr. May had laid
his injunctions on the eager family not to rush up to the station en
masse to excite and overwhelm, but to leave the meeting there entirely
to himself and his brougham. He had, therefore, been exceedingly
annoyed that one of Henry Ward's pieces of self-assertion had delayed
him unnecessarily at a consultation; and when at last he had escaped,
he spent most of his journey with his body half out of the window,
hurrying Will Adams, and making noises of encouragement to the horse;
or else in a strange tumult of sensation between hope and fear, pain
and pleasure, suspense and thankfulness, the predominant feeling being
vexation at not having provided against this contingency by sending
Richard to the station.

After all the best efforts of the stout old chestnut, he and the train
were simultaneously at the station, and the passengers were getting out
on the opposite platform. The Doctor made a dash to cross in the rear
of the train, but was caught and held fast by a porter with the angry
exclamation, 'She's backing, sir;' and there he stood in an agony,
feeling all Harry's blank disappointment, and the guilt of it besides,
and straining his eyes through the narrow gaps between the blocks of
carriages.

The train rushed on, and he was across the line the same instant, but
the blank was his. Up and down the gas-lighted platform he looked in
vain among the crowd, only his eye suddenly lit on a black case close
to his feet, with the three letters MAY, and the next moment a huge
chest appeared out of the darkness, bearing the same letters, and
lifted on a truck by the joint strength of a green porter, and a pair
of broad blue shoulders. Too ill to come on--telegraph, mail
train--rushed through the poor Doctor's brain as he stepped forward as
if to interrogate the chest. The blue shoulders turned, a ruddy
sun-burnt face lighted up, and the inarticulate exclamation on either
side was of the most intense relief and satisfaction.

'Where are the rest?' said Harry, holding his father's hand in no sick
man's grasp.

'At home, I told them not to come up; I thought--'

'Well, we'll walk down together! I've got you all to myself. I
thought you had missed my telegram. Hollo, Will, how d'ye do? what,
this thing to drive down in?