ch had held him subservient
before, now gave him this, and he who a few months earlier had been
proudly ploughing his first furrows in his little leased farm on a
mountain meadow, now walked with lifted head, "to the manor born," along
the platform, and entered the first-class compartment with Mr. Stretton,
where a few rich Americans had already installed themselves.

David noticed, with inward amusement, their surreptitious glances, when
the lawyer addressed him; how they plumed themselves, yet tried to
appear nonchalant and indifferent to the fact that they were riding in
the same compartment with a lord. In time he would cease to notice even
such incongruities as this tacit homage from a professedly
title-scorning people.

David's mother had moved into the town house, whither his uncle had
sent for her, when, stricken with grief, he had lain down for his last
brief illness. The old servants had all been retained, and David was
ushered to his mother's own sitting-room by the same household dignitary
who was wont to preside there when, as a lad, he had been allowed rare
visits to his cousins in the city.

How well he remembered his fine, punctilious old uncle, and the feeling
of awe tempered by anticipation with which he used to enter those halls.
He was overwhelmed with a sense of loss and disaster as he glanced up
the great stairway where his cousins were wont to come bounding down to
him, handsome, hearty, romping lads.

It had been a man's household, for his aunt had been dead many years--a
man's household characterized by a man's sense of heavy order without
the many touches of feminine occupation and arrangement which tend to
soften a man's half military reign. As he was being led through the
halls, he noticed a subtile change which warmed his quick senses. Was it
the presence of his mother and Laura? His entrance interrupted an
animated conversation which was being held between the two as the
manservant announced his name, and, in another instant, his mother was
in his arms.

"Dear little mother! Dear little mother!" But she was not small. She was
tall and dignified, and David had to stoop but little to bring his eyes
level with hers.

"David, I'm here, too." A hand was laid on his arm, and he released his
mother to turn and look into two warm brown eyes.

"And so the little sister is grown up," he said, embracing her, then
holding her off at arm's-length. "Five years! When I look at you,
mother, they d