two
baggage-horses beside those we rode. We dined at Worcester, and lay
that night at Bridgenorth. On the Tuesday, we slept at Macclesfield; on
the Wednesday, at Colne; on the Thursday, at Appleby; and on Friday,
about four o'clock in the afternoon, we reached home.

On the steps, waiting for us, stood Father and Sophy.

I had not been many minutes in the house before I felt, in some inward,
indescribable way, that things were changed. I wonder what that is by
which we feel things that we cannot know? It was not the house which
was altered. The old things, which I had known from a child, all seemed
to bid me welcome home. It was Father and Sophy in whom the change was.
It was not like Sophy to kiss me so warmly, and call me "darling." And
I was not one bit like Father to stroke my hair, and say so solemnly,
"God bless my lassie!" I have had many a kiss and a loving word from
him, but I never heard him speak of God except when he repeated the
responses in church, or when--

I wondered what had come to Father. And how I did wonder when after
supper Sam brought, not a pack of cards, but the big Bible which used to
lie in the hall window with such heaps of dust on it, and he and Maria
and Bessy sat down on the settle at the end of the hall, and Father, in
a voice which trembled a little, read a Psalm, and then we knelt down,
and said the Confession, and the General Thanksgiving, and the Lord's
Prayer. I looked at my Aunt Kezia, and saw that this was nothing new to
her. And then I remembered all at once that she had hinted at something
which we should see when we came home, and had bidden us keep our eyes
open.

The pack of cards did not come out at all.

The next morning I was the first to come down. I found Sam setting the
table in the parlour. We exchanged good-morrows, and Sam hoped I was
not very tired with the journey. Then he said, without looking up, as
he went on with his work--

"Ye'll ha'e found some changes here, I'm thinking, Miss."

"I saw one last night, Sam," said I, smiling.

"There's mair nor ane," he replied. "There's three things i' this warld
that can ne'er lie hidden: ye may try to cover them up, but they'll ay
out, sooner or later. And that's blood, and truth, and the grace o'
God."

"I am not so sure the truth of things always comes out, Sam," said I.

"Ye've no been sae lang i' this warld as me, Miss Cary," said Sam. "And
'deed, sometimes 'tis a lang while first. But th