.

"Safe enough, in all conscience!" said Mr. Ducklow.

"Taddy! Taddy! now mind!" Mrs. Ducklow repeated for the twentieth time.
"Don't you leave the house, and don't you touch the matches nor the
fire, and don't go to ransacking the rooms neither. You won't, will ye?"

"No 'm," answered Taddy, also for the twentieth time,--secretly
resolved, all the while, to take advantage of their absence, and
discover, if possible, what Mr. Ducklow brought home last night in his
boot-leg.

The Ducklows had intended to show their zeal and affection by making
Reuben an early visit. They were somewhat chagrined, therefore, to find
several neighbors already arrived to pay their respects to the returned
soldier. The fact that Miss Beswick was among the number did not serve
greatly to heighten their spirits.

"I've as good a notion to turn round and go straight home again as ever
I had to eat!" muttered Mrs. Ducklow.

"It's too late now," said her husband, advancing with a show of
confidence and cordiality he did not feel. "Wal, Reuben! glad to see
ye! glad to see ye! This is a joyful day I scurce ever expected to see!
Why, ye don't look so sick as I thought ye would! Does he, mother?"

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Ducklow, her woman's nature, and perhaps her old
motherly feelings for their adopted son, deeply moved by the sight of
his changed and wasted aspect. "I'd no idee he could be so very, so very
pale and thin! Had you, Sophrony?"

"I don't know what I thought," said the young wife, standing by,
watching her returned volunteer with features surcharged with
emotion,--deep suffering and sympathy, suffused and lighted up by love
and joy. "I only know I have him now! He has come home! He shall never
leave me again,--never!"

"But wasn't it terrible to see him brought home so?" whispered Mrs.
Ducklow.

"Yes, it was! But, oh, I was so thankful! I felt the worst was over; and
I had him again! I can nurse him now. He is no longer hundreds of miles
away, among strangers, where I cannot go to him,--though I should have
gone long ago, as you know, if I could have raised the means, and if it
hadn't been for the children."

"I--I--Mr. Ducklow would have tried to help you to the means, and I
would have taken the children, if we had thought it best for you to go,"
said Mrs. Ducklow. "But you see now it wasn't best, don't you?"

"Whether it was or not, I don't complain. I am too happy to-day to
complain of anything. To see him home again! Bu