otel Dieu, and the
long-lost memorandum-book, and was assured that the next mail would
carry an official letter to the Home Office, detailing the
circumstances of Samuel Axworthy's decease. Brown came to bid him
farewell, full of gladness and warm congratulation, which he longed to
send to his friend, but which Tom only received with hasty,
half-comprehending assents.

Late in the afternoon he reached Stoneborough, found no one come in,
and sat down in the fire-light, where, for all his impatience, fatigue
had made him drop asleep, when he was roused by Gertrude's voice,
exclaiming, 'Here really is Tom come, as you said he would, without
writing. Here are all his goods in the hall.'

'Is it you, Tom!' cried Ethel. 'Notice or no notice, we are glad of
you. But what is the matter?'

'Where's my father?'

'Coming. Charles Cheviot took him down to look at one of the boys. Is
there anything the matter?' she added, after a pause.

'No, nothing.'

'You look very odd,' added Gertrude.

He gave a nervous laugh. 'You would look odd, if you had travelled all
night.'

They commented, and began to tell home news; but Ethel noted that he
neither spoke nor heard, only listened for his father. Gertrude grew
tired of inattentive answers, and said she should go and dress. Ethel
was turning to follow, when he caught hold of her cloak, and drew her
close to him. 'Ethel,' he said, in a husky, stifled voice, 'do you
know this?'

On her knees, by the red fire-light, she saw the 'L. A. Ward,' and
looked up. 'Is it?' she said. He bowed his head.

And then Ethel put her arm round his neck, as he knelt down by her; and
he found that her tears, her rare tears, were streaming down, silent
but irrepressible. She had not spoken, had asked no question, made no
remark, when Dr. Mays entrance was heard, and she loosed her hold on
her brother, out without rising from the floor, looked up from under
the shade of her hat, and said, 'O, papa! it is found, and he has done
it! Look there!'

Her choked voice, and tokens of emotion, startled the Doctor; but Tom,
in a matter-of-fact tone, took up the word: 'How are you, father?--Yes.
I have only met with this little memorandum.'

Dr. May recognized it with a burst of incoherent inquiry and
exclamation, wringing Tom's hand, and giving no time for an answer;
and, indeed, his son attempted none--till, calming himself, the Doctor
subsided into his arm-chair, and with a deep sigh, exclaim