e anger!"

The words did not pass his lips, but the look he turned to his mother's
face was a prayer for pardon, and she strove to smile as she said
hopefully, "It is all past now, my son. God did not forget us--blessed
be His name!"

"And Lily!" exclaimed Archie, starting up at last. "Lily! where are
you? Oh, will she not be glad?"

"I am here, Archie. What has happened?" said Lilias at the door.

"Cousin Hugh has come home again," he whispered, drawing her forward;
and then she saw the stranger who had taken the water from her hand. He
knew her, too, as the child who had bidden him "God-speed!"

"Ah! is this the wee white Lily of Glen Elder?" he said softly.

Lilias's greeting was very quiet.

"I am glad you are come home again, Cousin Hugh," said she, as she gave
him her hand; and then she looked at her aunt.

"God has been better to me than my fears. He has given me the desire of
my heart--blessed be His name!" whispered Mrs Blair, as Lilias bent
over her.

All that it is needful to give here of Hugh Blair's story may be given
in a few words. He had not enlisted as a soldier, as had been at first
believed. But, in an hour of great misery and shame, he had gone away
from home, leaving behind him debt and dishonour, fully resolved never
to set foot in his native land again till he had retrieved his fortunes
and redeemed his good name.

To redeem one's good name is easily resolved upon, but not so easily
accomplished. He took with him, to the faraway land to which he had
exiled himself, the same hatred of restraint, the same love of sinful
pleasures, that had been his bane at home. It is true he left the
companions who had led him astray and encouraged him in his foolish
course; but, alas! there are in all lands evil-doers enough to hinder
the well-doing of those who have need to mend their ways. He sinned
much, and suffered much, before he found a foothold for himself in the
land of strangers.

Many a mother's prayers have followed a son into just such scenes of
vice and misery as he passed through before God's messenger, in the
shape of sore sickness, found him. Alone in a strange land, he lay for
weeks dependent on the unwilling charity of strangers. The horrors of
that fearful illness, the dreariness of that slow convalescence, could
not be told. Helpless, homeless, friendless, with no memories of the
past which his follies had not embittered, no hopes for the future which
he dared to ch