tifling yellow fog that had filled the London streets
when he walked westwards from the City at the same hour on the previous
evening. Above his head the sky was clear and bright, the mist-wreaths
melting away as they mounted towards the stars. The lighted windows in
the village street had a pleasant homely look; the snug villas, lying
back from the high road with a middle distance of dark lawn and
glistening shrubbery, shone brightly upon the traveller as he drove by,
the curtains not yet drawn before some of the windows, the rooms ruddy in
the firelight. In one of them he caught a brief glimpse of a young
matron seated by the fire with her children clustered at her knee, and
the transient picture struck him with a sudden pang. He had dreamed so
fondly of a home like this; pleasant rooms shining in the sacred light of
the hearth, his wife and children waiting to bid him welcome when the
day's work was done. All other objects which men live and toil for seemed
to him poor and worthless in the absence of this one dear incentive to
exertion, this one sweet recompense for every care. Even Lidford House,
which had never before seemed to him the perfection of a home, had a new
aspect for him to-night, and reminded him sharply of his own loss. He
envied Martin Lister the quiet jog-trot happiness of his domestic life;
his love for and pride in his children; the calm haven of that
comfortable hearth by which he sat to-night, with his slippered feet
stretched luxuriously upon a fender-stool of his wife's manufacture, and
his daughter sitting on a hassock close to his easy-chair, reading in a
book of fairy tales.

Of course they were all delighted to see him, at once pleased and
surprised by the unexpected visit. He had brought a great parcel of toys
for the two children; and Selwyn Lister, a fine boisterous boy in a
Highland costume, was summoned downstairs to assist at the unpacking of
these treasures. It was half-past seven, and the Listers had dined at
six: but in an incredibly short space of time the Sutherland table had
been drawn out to a cosy position near the fire and spread with a
substantial repast, while Mrs. Lister took her place behind the ponderous
old silver urn which had been an heirloom in her husband's family for the
last two centuries. The Listers were full of talk about their own
travels--a long-delayed continental tour which had been talked of ever
since their return from the honeymoon trip to Geneva and Cham