Father, dear, dear father!" said Charley, as he loosened his grasp,
and, still holding him by both hands, looked earnestly into his face
with swimming eyes.

Old Mr Kennedy seemed to have lost his powers of speech. He gazed at
his son for a few seconds in silence, then suddenly threw his arms
around him and engaged in a species of wrestle which he intended for an
embrace.

"O Charley, my boy!" he exclaimed, "you've come at last--God bless you!
Let's look at you. Quite changed: six feet; no, not quite changed--the
old nose; black as an Indian. O Charley, my dear boy! I've been
waiting for you for months; why did you keep me so long, eh? Hang it,
where's my handkerchief?" At this last exclamation Mr Kennedy's
feelings quite overcame him; his full heart overflowed at his eyes, so
that when he tried to look at his son, Charley appeared partly magnified
and partly broken up into fragments. Fumbling in his pocket for the
missing handkerchief, which he did not find, he suddenly seized his fur
cap, in a burst of exasperation, and wiped his eyes with that.
Immediately after, forgetting that it _was_ a cap, he thrust it into his
pocket.

"Come, dear father," cried Charley, drawing the old man's arm through
his, "let us go home. Is Kate there?"

"Ay, ay," cried Mr Kennedy, waving his hand as he was dragged away, and
bestowing, quite unwittingly, a backhanded slap on the cheek to Harry
Somerville, which nearly felled that youth to the ground. "Ay, ay!
Kate, to be sure, darling. Yes, quite right, Charley; a pipe--that's
it, my boy, let's have a pipe!" And thus, uttering incoherent and
broken sentences, he disappeared through the doorway with his long-lost
and now recovered son.

Meanwhile Harry and Jacques continued to pace quietly before the house,
waiting patiently until the first ebullition of feeling at the meeting
of Charley with his father and sister should be over. In a few minutes
Charley ran out.

"Hollo, Harry! come in, my boy; forgive my forgetfulness, but--"

"My dear fellow," interrupted Harry, "what nonsense you are talking! Of
course you forgot me, and everybody and everything on earth, just now;
but have you seen Kate? Is--"

"Yes, yes," cried Charley, as he pushed his friend before him, and
dragged Jacques after him into the parlour.--"Here's Harry, father,
Jacques.--You've heard of Jacques, Kate?"

"Harry, my dear boy!" cried Mr Kennedy, seizing his young friend by the
hand; "how are you,