uch of the woman in her to let the matter drop
there.

She said to herself, "If any one knows about this thing, it is Miss
Persnips. I'll clap on my bonnet and go up there."

Miss Persnips generally had a bag full of news, and it was the only thing
in the store for which she did not make a charge. Its mouth was hospitably
open to all comers, and the distribution of its contents had an effect on
her custom like the giving out of a chromo as a present. This morning,
though, while the assortment in the bag was quite full and varied, it had
nothing on the above subject. Aunt Stanshy went home disappointed. If she
could have gone to Mr. Walton's she would have witnessed something of
interest.

Mr. Walton was leading the stranger into his house, when he said, "Stop a
moment in the parlor and I will go into the sitting-room and prepare her."

"All right."

"Mother," said Mr. Walton, stepping into the sitting-room, "would you like
to see an old friend this morning? You feel comfortable?"

"O yes; bring him in."

"Shall I tell you who it is?"

"No, let me have the surprise."

Her son led the stranger in.

"Why, Fred!" exclaimed Mrs. Walton.

The man dropped on his knees, and put his head in her lap. And this was
all that the mother did--she stroked his head with her hands, saying:
"Why, Fred! Fred! my poor boy!"

That was the way the long-absent son came home.

Fred Walton had been a wayward young man, finally going to Italy in a
sailing-vessel, engaging to do any work for the sake of his passage.

In Italy, he took the name of Blanco, purposing to build up a new
character on the basis of a new name. The new character he needed, but his
old name would have served him. He there married a young Italian lady who
had met his older brother in his travels and was an object of deep
interest to him, but he had relinquished her to the younger brother. Their
married home was a pretty one, and a view of it Fred sent to his family in
America. It was a picture of this home, taken at another season of the
year, and from a different point of view, that his mother and brother had
noticed, and yet failed to identify, when Tony's pictures were inspected.
Fred's wife dying, leaving a little boy, Antonio, four years old, Fred
wished to return to America, but concluded to remain in Italy, educating
his boy in English as well as Italian. A year before this story opens, he
wrote his mother that he was about to sail for a port in Alger