riend's strange fancy for "going out over night
(as Mat phrased it) to catch the morning the first thing in the fields"
too well to be at all astonished at now finding himself alone. He moved
away sleepily to bed, yawning out these words to himself:--"I shall see
the old boy back again as usual to-morrow morning as soon as I wake."

When the morning came, this anticipation proved to be fallacious. The
first objects that greeted Zack's eyes when he lazily awoke about eleven
o'clock, were an arm and a letter, introduced cautiously through his
partially opened bedroom door. Though by no means contemptible in regard
to muscular development, this was not the hairy and herculean arm
of Mat. It was only the arm of the servant of all work, who held the
barbarian lodger in such salutary awe that she had never been known to
venture her whole body into the forbidden region of his apartments since
he had first inhabited them. Zack jumped out of bed and took the letter.
It proved to be from Valentine, and summoned him to repair immediately
to the painter's house to see Mrs. Thorpe, who earnestly desired to
speak with him. His color changed as he read the few lines Mr. Blyth had
written, and thought of the prospect of meeting his mother face to
face for the first time since he had left his home. He hurried on his
clothes, however, without a moment's delay, and went out directly--now
walking at the top of his speed, now running, in his anxiety not to
appear dilatory or careless in paying obedience to the summons that had
just reached him.

On arriving at the painter's house, he was shown into one of the parlors
on the ground floor; and there sat Mrs. Thorpe, with Mr. Blyth to keep
her company. The meeting between mother and son was characteristic on
both sides. Without giving Valentine time enough to get from his chair
to the door--without waiting an instant to ascertain what sentiments
towards him were expressed in Mrs. Thorpe's face--without paying the
smallest attention to the damage he did to her cap and bonnet--Zack
saluted his mother with the old shower of hearty kisses and the old
boisterously affectionate hug of his nursery and schoolboy days. And
she, poor woman, on her side, feebly faltered over her first words of
reproof--then lost her voice altogether, pressed into his hand a little
paper packet of money that she had brought for him, and wept on his
breast without speaking another word. Thus it had been with them long
ago