moment.

Through the lanes he knew so well, by whose hedgerows he had so often
plucked sorrel and wild roses; past the old church with its sleeping
churchyard; through, the quiet village, where every ten yards he met old
acquaintances who looked pleased to see him, and whom he greeted with
glad smiles and nods of recognition; past the Latin school, from which
came murmurs and voices as of yore (what a man he felt himself now by
comparison!);--by the old Roman camp, where he had imagined such heroic
things when he was a child; through all the scenes so rich with the
memories and associations of his happy childhood, they flew along; and
now they had entered the avenue, and Eric was painfully on the look-out.

Yes! there they were all three--Mrs. Trevor, and Fanny, and Vernon, on
the mound at the end of the avenue; and the younger ones ran to meet
him. It was a joyous meeting; he gave Fanny a hearty kiss, and put his
arm round Vernon's neck, and then held him in front to have a look
at him.

"How tall you've grown, Verny, and how well you look," he said, gazing
proudly at him; and indeed the boy was a brother to be justly proud of.
And Vernon quite returned the admiration as he saw the healthy glow of
Eric's features, and the strong graceful development of his limbs.

And so they quickly joined Mrs. Trevor, who embraced her nephew with a
mother's love: and, amid all that nameless questioning of delightful
trifles, that "blossoming vein" of household talk, which gives such an
incommunicable charm to the revisiting of home, they all three turned
into the house, where Eric, hungry with his travels, did ample justice
to the "jolly spread" prepared for him, luxurious beyond anything he had
seen for his last year at school. When he and Vernon went up to their
room at night--the same little room in which they slept on the night
when they first had met--they marked their heights on the door again,
which showed Eric that in the last year he had grown two inches, a fact
which he pointed out to Vernon with no little exultation. And then they
went to bed, and to a sleep over which brooded the indefinite sensation
of a great unknown joy;--that rare heavenly sleep which only comes once
or twice or thrice in life, on occasions such as this.

He was up early next morning, and, opening his window, leaned out with
his hands among the green vine-leaves which encircled it. The garden
looked beautiful as ever, and he promised himself an e