lded to a sentimental weakness in deciding upon this
trip to Patesville. A matter of business had brought him within a
day's journey of the town, and an over-mastering impulse had compelled
him to seek the mother who had given him birth and the old town where
he had spent the earlier years of his life. No one would have
acknowledged sooner than he the folly of this visit. Men who have
elected to govern their lives by principles of abstract right and
reason, which happen, perhaps, to be at variance with what society
considers equally right and reasonable, should, for fear of
complications, be careful about descending from the lofty heights of
logic to the common level of impulse and affection. Many years before,
Warwick, when a lad of eighteen, had shaken the dust of the town from
his feet, and with it, he fondly thought, the blight of his
inheritance, and had achieved elsewhere a worthy career. But during
all these years of absence he had cherished a tender feeling for his
mother, and now again found himself in her house, amid the familiar
surroundings of his childhood. His visit had brought joy to his
mother's heart, and was now to bring its shrouded companion, sorrow.
His mother had lived her life, for good or ill. A wider door was open
to his sister--her mother must not bar the entrance.

"She may go," the mother repeated sadly, drying her tears. "I'll give
her up for her good."

"The table 's ready, mamma," said Rena, coming to the door.

The lunch was spread in the kitchen, a large unplastered room at the
rear, with a wide fireplace at one end. Only yesterday, it seemed to
Warwick, he had sprawled upon the hearth, turning sweet potatoes before
the fire, or roasting groundpeas in the ashes; or, more often, reading,
by the light of a blazing pine-knot or lump of resin, some volume from
the bookcase in the hall. From Bulwer's novel, he had read the story
of Warwick the Kingmaker, and upon leaving home had chosen it for his
own. He was a new man, but he had the blood of an old race, and he
would select for his own one of its worthy names. Overhead loomed the
same smoky beams, decorated with what might have been, from all
appearances, the same bunches of dried herbs, the same strings of
onions and red peppers. Over in the same corner stood the same
spinning-wheel, and through the open door of an adjoining room he saw
the old loom, where in childhood he had more than once thrown the
shuttle. The kitchen was