her death necessitated his return to the home of
his only relatives, Enoch and Jane. At the request of his sister, the
former had sold the elegant new residence in a fashionable quarter of
the town, and removed to the old homestead and farm, hallowed by
reminiscences of their mother, and invested with the magic attractions
that early association weaves about the spots frequented in youth.

Manifesting, even in boyhood, an unconquerable repugnance not only to
curriculum, but the monotonous routine of mercantile pursuits, Enoch
sullenly forswore stock-jobbing and finance, and declared his
intention of indulging his rural tastes and becoming a farmer. Fine
cattle and poultry of all kinds, heavy wheat-crops, and well-stored
corn-cribs engrossed his thoughts, to the entire exclusion of abstract
aesthetic speculation, of operatic music, and Pre-Raphaelitism; while
the sight of one of his silky short-horned Ayrshires yielded him
infinitely more pleasure than the possession of all Rosa Bonheur's
ideals could possibly have done, and the soft billowy stretch of his
favorite clover-meadow was worth all the canvas that Claude or Poussin
had ever colored. While Enoch had cordially hated his fair blue-eyed
young step-mother, not from any personal or individual grounds of
grievance, but simply and solely because she dared to occupy the
household niche, sanctified once and forever by his own meek
gentle-toned mother, he nevertheless tenderly loved her baby-boy; and
as Ulpian grew to manhood he became the idol, at whose shrine the
brother and sister offered their pure and most intense affection.

Neither had married, and when the youngest of the household band
completed his studies, and decided to accept a naval appointment, the
consternation and grief which the announcement produced at the
homestead, proved how essential the presence of the half-brother had
become to the happiness of the sedate stolid Enoch, and equable
unselfish Jane. But the desire to travel subordinated all other
sentiments in Ulpian's nature, and he eagerly embarked for a cruise,
from which he was recalled by tidings of the death of his brother.

A brief sojourn at the homestead had sufficed to arrange the affairs
of the carefully-managed estate, and the young surgeon returned to his
post aboard ship, in distant oriental seas. The increasing infirmity
of his sister had finally induced the resignation of his cherished
commission, and brought the man of thirty-five