ace from beyond that great
gulf--ever widening more and more, more and more, till, impatiently
stamping upon the floor, he made an angry effort to cast the "folly"
from him, and went and knelt down by his mother's side.

"I am sorry, Brace," she said, as her hand played, with all a proud
mother's tenderness, amongst his fair, crisply-curling hair--"I am
grieved that my words should have made so troublous an impression."

"It is not that--it is not that! There, what am I saying?" he
exclaimed, with assumed cheerfulness. "I've come home in high spirits,
brimful of happiness, and ready to enjoy myself; so, dear mother, don't
let us trouble about the past--let it be buried."

"Yes, better so--far better so!" exclaimed Mrs Norton. "For our sakes,
Brace, never refer to it before your father in any wise; for those
incidents were so many shoals in the way of his happiness; but, Brace, I
set myself to try and make his life happy, and sometimes I cannot help
thinking that I have succeeded."

"Indeed, no happier home than this could ever have existed, I'm sure,"
cried Brace, smiling in his mother's pleasant face. "But," he added, as
he kissed her, laughing, "it does seem hard that when you have cured a
husband of a roving disposition, you should have a son turn out far
worse."

Mrs Norton smiled, but a grave, sad expression swept the next moment
over her face.

"Save for his business transactions, Brace, that was your father's last
long absence from me--for I suffered deeply then. I think that on his
return from France, when he had had some arrangements made by which he
gained time to pay off every demand, he saw how I had felt his absence,
and made a resolve to leave me no more, and he has kept to that
determination."

"The mines nearly ruined him, then, in the first place?" said Brace.

"Very nearly; but he had such faith in them that for five years we lived
almost in poverty that we might pay off debts; when, as his last
creditor was satisfied, your father's faith met with its reward, and
ever since the mines have gone on increasing their returns year by year.
But let us go to him now. You will be careful, though, Brace; you see
now how necessary it is that not even a reference should be made to the
bygone?"

"Yes--yes, mother--yes!" said Brace, with a troubled sigh; and they rose
to leave the room, when, with the traces of his former emotion quite
passed away, Captain Norton entered, looking inquiringly at mot