him,
looking exactly as she had done when he last saw her.

"Speak, speak, who are you?" she at length exclaimed.

Scarcely had Owen opened his lips to pronounce his name, than she threw
her arms around his neck.

"I knew, I knew it!" she cried out, and burst forth into an
uncontrollable fit of crying, followed by one of laughter, as she hugged
him again and again to her bosom. Strong-minded as Mrs Kezia was, she
possessed a woman's affectionate heart, and if she had never been in
hysterics before, she was undoubtedly on this occasion. She very soon
gained the mastery over herself, however.

"What a fool I am; but you will not tell him of it, Owen," she said, "or
he will be putting his back up at me."

Looking out into the garden, where Mr Fluke was in earnest
confabulation with Joseph, Owen promised Kezia to say nothing about the
demonstrative way in which she had received him.

"I should be very ungrateful if I did," he added. "And how is Mr
Fluke? Shall I go to him, or will you tell him I have arrived?"

"I will go to him," she answered, "for though he has got a heart of some
sort, it may be like his outside, a little withered. He took on sadly
when he thought you were lost, and as he has been rather shaky lately,
it might upset him if he were to see you suddenly."

"Do, then, my dear Mrs Kezia, tell him that I have come, and am the
same Owen Hartley that was when I went away, although I have got some
strange things to talk to him about," said Owen.

"Well, then, go into the parlour, and wait until I fetch him," said Mrs
Kezia, and she hurried out into the garden, nearly falling down the
steps in her eagerness.

Owen would have liked to watch her while she communicated the news of
his arrival. He had some time to wait before he heard her voice calling
him. He at once went out; Mr Fluke was at the further end of the
garden.

"I got him down there before I told him nat a young gentleman had come
to see him, and that although he was a good deal bigger than Owen, and
dressed in a naval uniform, that to my mind he was no one else. Even
now he is not quite certain whether or not he is to see you."

"You have acted prudently, as you always do, Mrs Kezia," said Owen.

Mr Fluke looked at Owen, and then began to walk towards him, increasing
his pace until he broke almost into a run. His limbs refused to obey
the impulse of his feelings.

"Can it be? No! It is impossible! But yet, I don't know. Ye