--my future abiding place, if I could find any honest employment;
but this intelligence caused me to change my mind. News had just
been received of the wonderful discoveries of gold in California,
and I said to myself, 'If there is gold to be had there, I will find
it.' I was not thinking of myself when I made this resolution, but
of you and father. In this spirit I made the long and wearisome
overland journey, and for more than eight, months worked amid the
golden sands of that far off region. And my labor was not in vain. I
accumulated a large amount of grains and lumps of the precious
metal, and then hurried homeward to lay the treasures at your feet.
Happily, I arrived at the most fitting time."

Mrs. Howland was deeply affected by this relation, so strange and so
unlooked for in every particular.

"And now, mother, what of Mary?" said Andrew, before time was given
for any remark upon this brief narrative. "Has she and her husband
yet been reconciled to father?"

"No; and my heart has grown faint with hope deferred in relation to
this matter. I think Mary's husband is too unyielding. Your
father, I know, regrets the unkind opposition he made to their
marriage; and has seen many good reasons for changing his opinion of
Mr. Markland's character. But you know his unbending disposition. If
they would yield a little--if they would only make the first step
toward a reconciliation, he would be softened in a moment. And then,
oh, how much happier would all be!"

"They must yield; they must take the first step," said Andrew,
rising from his chair.

"That reconciliation would be the top sheaf of my happiness, today,"
replied Mrs. Howland.

"It shall crown your rejoicing," said Andrew, in a positive tone.
"Where do they live?"

Mrs. Howland gave the direction asked by her son, who departed
immediately on his errand of good will.

For a time after Andrew left the store of his father, Mr. Howland
sat half bewildered by the strange occurrence that had just taken
place, while his heart felt emotions of tenderness going deeper and
deeper toward its centre. Though confessed to no one, he had felt
greatly troubled in regard to the iron discipline to which he had
subjected his wayward boy, and had tried for years, but in vain, to
force from his mind the conviction that upon his own head rested the
sin of his ruin. Long since had he given him up as lost to this
world, and, he sadly feared, lost in the next. To have him retur