m into the road. And the two went off into an
uproarious sparring match like a couple of youngsters.

Lawyer Ed had never yet married though he still made love to every
woman, girl and baby in Algonquin. But Roderick McRae had grown to be
like a son to him, filling every desire of his big warm heart, and now
the proud day had come when his boy was to be his partner. He and
Angus had talked for hours of the wonderful things that were to be
accomplished in the town and church and on the Jericho Road when the
Lad came home, and had laid great plans at which the Lad himself only
guessed. They had feared for a time that all were to be ruined when,
after his graduation, he had been kept in the city in the employ of a
firm, and had received from them an offer of a position in the West.
But he had refused, to their joy, and was to settle in Algonquin and
relieve Lawyer Ed of his altogether too burdensome practice.

As they spun along, for the five-o'clock train was still to be caught,
the elder man poured out all the news of the town; J. P.'s last great
speech, Algonquin's lacrosse victories, the latest battle in the
session,--for Jock McPherson was still a valiant and stubborn
objector,--the last tea-meeting at McClintock's Corners, where the
Highland Quartette, of whom Lawyer Ed was leader, had sung, the errand
over to Indian Head, where he had just been, etc., etc. It was not
half told when they came to the point in the road opposite Roderick's
home, and the Lad leaped down, promising to run up to the office that
night when he went into town for his trunk.

He lost no time on the rest of the journey. It was a dash through the
dim woods where the white Indian Pipes raised their tiny, waxen tapers,
and the squirrels skirled indignantly at him from the tree-tops; a leap
across the stream where the water-lilies made a fairy bridge of green
and gold, a scramble through the underbrush, and he was at the edge of
the little pasture-field, and saw the old home buried in orchard trees,
and Aunt Kirsty's garden a blaze of sun-flowers and asters. And there
at the gate, gazing eagerly down the lane in quite the wrong direction,
stood his father!

The years had told heavily on the Good Samaritan, and Roderick's loving
eye could detect changes even in the last year of his absence. Old
Angus's tall figure was stooped and thin, and he carried a staff, but
he still held up his head as though facing the skies, and his eyes were
as