plain, and sad, but
with the spirit and wit of the true mother, to cherish the sorrowful. In
love for the child these mothers were all alike. He felt at home, and
admired the quickness and skill with which Anne Dillon took up her new
office. He noted everything, even his own shifting emotions. This was
one phase of the melancholy change in him: the man he had cast off
rarely saw more than pleased him, but the new Arthur Dillon had an alert
eye for trifles.

"Son dear," said his mother, when they sat down to tea, "we'll have the
evenin' to ourselves, because I didn't tell a soul what time you were
comin', though of course they all knew it, for I couldn't keep back such
good news; that after all of us thinkin' you dead, you should turn out
to be alive an' well, thank God. So we can spend the evenin' decidin'
jist what to do an' say to-morrow. The first thing in the mornin' Louis
Everard will be over to see you. Since he heard of your comin', he's
been jist wild, for he was your favorite; you taught him to swim, an' to
play ball, an' to skate, an' carried him around with you, though he's
six years younger than you. He's goin' to be a priest in time with the
blessin' o' God. Then his mother an' sister, perhaps Sister Mary
Magdalen, too; an' your uncle Dan Dillon, on your father's side, he's
the only relative you have. My folks are all dead. He's a senator, an' a
leader in Tammany Hall, an' he'll be proud of you. You were very fond of
him, because he was a prize-fighter in his day, though I never thought
much of that, an' was glad when he left the business for politics."

"And how am I to know all these people, mother?"

"You've come home sick," she said placidly, "an' you'll stay in bed for
the next week, or a month if you like. As each one comes I'll let you
know jist who they are. You needn't talk any more than you like, an' any
mistakes will be excused, you've been away so long, an' come home so
sick."

They smiled frankly at each other, and after tea she showed him his
room, a plain chamber with sacred pictures on the walls and a photograph
of Arthur Dillon over the bureau.

"Jist as you left it ten years ago," she said with a sob. "An' your
picture as you looked a month before you went away."

The portrait showed a good-looking and pugnacious boy of sixteen,
dark-haired and large-eyed like himself; but the likeness between the
new and the old Arthur was not striking; yet any one who wished or
thought to find a r