esemblance might have succeeded. As to disposition,
Horace Endicott would not have deserted his mother under any temptation.

"What sort of a boy was--was I at that age, mother?"

"The best in the world," she answered mildly but promptly, feeling the
doubt in the question. "An' no one was able to understan' why you ran
away as you did. I wonder now my heart didn't break over it. The
neighbors jist adored you: the best dancer an' singer, the gayest boy in
the parish, an' the Monsignor thought there was no other like you."

"I have forgotten how to sing an' dance, mother. I think these
accomplishments can be easily learned again. Does the Monsignor still
hold his interest in me?"

"More than ever, I think, but he's a quiet man that says little when he
means a good deal."

At nine o'clock an old woman came in with an evening paper, and gave a
cry of joy at sight of him. Having been instructed between the opening
of the outer door and the woman's appearance, Arthur took the old lady
in his arms and kissed her. She was the servant of the house, more
companion than servant, wrinkled like an autumn leaf that has felt the
heat, but blithe and active.

"So you knew me, Judy, in spite of the whiskers and the long absence?"

"Knew you, is it?" cried Judy, laughing, and crying, and talking at
once, in a way quite wonderful to one who had never witnessed this feat.
"An' why shouldn't I know you? Didn't I hould ye in me own two arrums
the night you were born? An' was there a day afther that I didn't have
something to do wid ye? Oh, ye little spalpeen, to give us all the
fright ye did, runnin' away to Californy. Now if ye had run away to
Ireland, there'd be some sinse in it. Musha thin, but it was fond o'
goold ye wor, an' ye hardly sixteen. I hope ye brought a pile of it back
wid ye."

She rattled on in her joy until weariness took them all at the same
moment, and they withdrew to bed. He was awakened in the morning by a
cautious whispering in the room outside his door.

"Pon me sowl," Judy was saying angrily, "ye take it like anny ould
Yankee. Ye're as dull as if 'twas his body on'y, an' not body an' sowl
together, that kem home to ye. Jist like ould Mrs. Wilcox the night her
son died, sittin' in her room, an' crowshayin' away, whin a dacint woman
'ud be howlin' wid sorra like a banshee."

"To tell the truth," Anne replied, "I can't quite forgive him for the
way he left me, an' it's so long since I saw him, Judy, an' he's