as a very simple supper--cheese, honey, roasted apples, and brown
bread; but the children had healthy appetites, and had not been
enervated by luxuries. Conversation during the meal was general. When
it was over, the three younger ones were despatched to bed with a
benediction, under charge of their eldest sister; young Gerard seated
himself on the bench, with a handful of slips of wood, which he was
ambitiously trying to carve into striking likenesses of the twelve
Apostles; and when the mother's household duties were over, she came and
sat by her husband in the chimney-corner. Stephen laid his hand upon
her shoulder.

"Ermine," he said, "dear heart, wilt thou reckon me cruel, if I carry
thy thoughts back--for a reason I have--to another snowy night, fourteen
years ago?"

"Stephen!" she exclaimed, with a sudden start. "Oh no, I could never
think _thee_ cruel. But what has happened?"

"Dost thou remember, when I first saw thee in Mother Haldane's house, my
telling thee that I could not find Rudolph?"

"Of course I do. O Stephen! have you--do you think--"

Gerard looked up from his carving in amazement, to see the mother whom
he knew as the calmest and quietest of women transformed into an eager,
excited creature, with glowing cheeks and radiant eyes.

"Let me remind thee of one other point,--that Mother Haldane said God
would either take the child to Himself, or would some day show us what
had become of him."

"She did,--much to my surprise."

"And mine. But I think, Ermine--I think it is going to come true."

"Stephen, what have you heard?"

"I believe, Ermine, I have seen him."

"Seen _him_--Rudolph?"

"I feel almost sure it was he. I was standing this morning near Chepe
Cross, to let a waggon pass, when I looked up, and all at once I saw a
young man of some twenty years standing likewise till it went by. The
likeness struck me dumb for a moment. Gerard's brow--no, lad, not thou!
Thy mother knows--Gerard's brow, and his fair hair, with the very wave
it used to have about his temples; his eyes and nose too; but Agnes's
mouth, and somewhat of Agnes in the way he held his head. And as I
stood there, up came Leuesa and her husband, passing the youth; and
before I spoke a word about him, `Saw you ever one so like Gerard?'
saith she. I said, `Ay, him and Agnes too.' We watched the lad cross
the street, and parting somewhat hastily from our friends, I followed
him at a little distance. I held him