on.

"I ain't your father," the surly reply.

"But you are to be, as soon as I can find a minister. The past is
past. I've come to take you and Mary to your old home. When it was
sold, I bought it; you are to go back to it and live there. It is to
be our home."

There is astonishment upon the cold, hard face, which relaxes its
sternness; the chin quivers, the lips tremble, tears roll down the
cheeks of the gray-haired exile. Through the years he has nursed his
hate. But there is no sword so sharp, no weapon so keen to pierce the
hardened human heart, as kindness. He has hated Samuel Adams, John
Hancock, and Tom Brandon; and this is Tom's revenge. His old home to
be his own once more! No longer an exile! To sit once more by the old
fireside, through the kindness of him whom he had turned from his
door! His head drops upon his breast; he sobs like a child, but
reaches out his arms to them.

"Take her, Tom. I've hated you, but God bless you; you were right, and
I was wrong."

No longer hard-hearted, cold, and animated by hate, but as a little
child he enters the doorway leading to the Kingdom of Heaven.

* * * * *

A man of stalwart frame, a woman radiant and beautiful, with a little
boy and girl, are standing by the door of the humble home across the
way; fellow-passengers with Major Tom on the Berinthia Brandon. Mr.
Newville opens the door in answer to the knock, to be clasped in the
arms of Ruth. Great the surprise, unspeakable the joy, of father,
mother, and daughter, meeting once more, welcoming a worthy son,
taking prattling grandchildren to their arms.

"We have come for you, and we are all going home together. You will
find everything just as it was when you left," said Ruth.

* * * * *

Once more there were happy homes in Boston,--that upon Copp's Hill,
where Berinthia and Abraham Duncan cared for the father and mother;
that where Tom and Mary Shrimpton-Brandon made the passing days
pleasant to Abel Shrimpton, loyal no longer to King George, but to the
flag of the future republic; and that other home, where Major Robert
Walden and his loving wife, with queenly grace, dispensed unstinted
hospitality, not only to those distinguished among their fellow-men,
but to the poor and needy, impoverished by the long and weary struggle
for independence of the mother land. Abel Shrimpton and Theodore
Newville were no longer exiles, but citizens, acknowl