alt, and ran, but
alas! baffled and enraged at his ill success, he stood on the platform
and watched the train pull out. It was only a slow local puffing away
there.

"Liverpool express left five minutes ago, my lord," said the guard.

His mother leaned out, watching him with sad, yet eager eyes, satisfied
that it should be so. He might return now, and there was by no means an
end to her opposition.

CHAPTER XXXII

IN WHICH CASSANDRA BRINGS THE HEIR OF DANESHEAD CASTLE BACK TO HER
HILLTOP, AND THE SHADOW LIFTS

"Cassandry Merlin, whar did you drap from?" cried the Widow Farwell, as
she looked up from the supper she was preparing at the great fireplace,
and saw her daughter in the doorway with her baby. Her old face radiated
light and warmth and love as she took them both in her arms. "Whar's
David?"

Cassandra smiled wearily, returning her mother's kiss and yielding her
the baby. "You'll have to be satisfied with me and little son, mother.
David was still in Africa, so I came home again." She spoke as if a trip
to England were a casual little matter, and this was all the explanation
she gave that night. "I got the hotel carriage to bring me up from the
station."

The mother, with quaint simplicity, accepted it, asking no troublesome
questions. If David was not there, why should not her daughter return.
After their supper together, in the warm, starlit evening, each member
of the family carrying something for the traveller's comfort, they all
climbed up to Cassandra's cabin, and the old life began as if it had
suffered no interruption. Cassandra so filled the pauses with questions
of all that had happened during her absence that it was only after her
mother was in bed and dropping off to sleep she remembered questions of
her own that had been unasked, or left unanswered.

The next day Cassandra pleaded weariness and stayed in her cabin,
sending Martha down for her necessary supplies, and quietly occupying
herself with setting her simple home in its accustomed order. The day
after, she spent overlooking the little farm with Cotton, and hearing
from him all about the animals. The cows, two little calves, Frale's
colt, and her own filly, and how "some ol' houn' dog" had got into the
sheep-pen and killed the mother sheep, and "Marthy" had brought the twin
lambs up by hand. And while Cassandra busied herself thus, the widow
kept charge of the little grandson, warming her heart with his baby
ways, petting hi