"True, Mrs. Brent. I have seen the time when I was poorly supplied with
it. Now I am happily at ease. Can you and Philip be ready?"

"Yes, Mr. Granville," answered Mrs. Brent promptly. "We are ready
to-day, for that matter. We shall both be glad to get started."

"I am glad to hear it. I think Philip will like his Western home.
I bought a fine country estate of a Chicago merchant, whose failure
compelled him to part with it. Philip shall have his own horse and his
own servants."

"He will be delighted," said Mrs. Brent warmly. "He has been used to
none of these things, for Mr. Brent and I, much as we loved him, had not
the means to provide him with such luxuries."

"Yes, Mrs. Brent, I understand that fully. You were far from rich. Yet
you cared for my boy as if he were your own."

"I loved him as much as if he had been my own son, Mr. Granville."

"I am sure you did. I thank Providence that I am able to repay to some
extent the great debt I have incurred. I cannot repay it wholly, but
I will take care that you, too, shall enjoy ease and luxury. You shall
have one of the best rooms in my house, and a special servant to wait
upon you."

"Thank you, Mr. Granville," said Mrs. Brent, her heart filled with proud
anticipations of the state in which she should hereafter live. "I do not
care where you put me, so long as you do not separate me from Philip."

"She certainly loves my son!" said Mr. Granville to himself. "Yet her
ordinary manner is cold and constrained, and she does not seem like a
woman whose affections would easily be taken captive. Yet Philip seems
to have found the way to her heart. It must be because she has had so
much care of him. We are apt to love those whom we benefit."

But though Mr. Granville credited Mrs. Brent with an affection for
Philip, he was uneasily conscious that the boy's return had not brought
him the satisfaction and happiness he had fondly anticipated.

To begin with, Philip did not look at all as he had supposed his son
would look. He did not look like the Granvilles at all. Indeed, he had
an unusually countrified aspect, and his conversation was mingled with
rustic phrases which shocked his father's taste.

"I suppose it comes of the way in which he has been brought up and
the country boys he has associated with," thought Mr. Granville.
"Fortunately he is young, and there is time to polish him. As soon as I
reach Chicago I will engage a private tutor for him, who shall not