that he was mistaken about Aunt Isabel. But that was
impossible now. Her father--again the hot tears came surging up, and
her breast began to heave.

Suddenly she started. What was that? She jumped to her feet.
Somebody was turning the knob of the street door and fitting a key in
the lock. At first it was her impulse to cry out, but she mastered
herself and ran quickly through the parlor and stood bravely on the
threshold waiting for the door to open and admit the intruder. Her
heart beat like a trip-hammer in her side, and the pulses in her wrists
and temples throbbed painfully. She saw the door move inward, she felt
the rush of cold outer air upon her face, and then--

In a moment she was locked in two strong arms, her head was pressed
against a dear, broad chest, and she was crying "Father! Father!" in a
perfect ecstasy of rapture and a tempest of tears.

For a few moments neither of them said a single word. They just clung
to each other and wept--the strong man as well as the slender girl.

They seemed to lose all other thought in the joy of the meeting. Then
somehow they found themselves in the library, and Nan, still sobbing
for very happiness, was listening to her father as he told her how, for
many months, he had been ill, but had tried to fight it off and
overcome it, because he was so anxious to get home, and he could not
bear to think he might be prevented. Then, just before his ship
sailed, and after he had enrolled himself among the list of passengers,
and bidden good-bye to those he knew, he was stricken down and for
weeks lay unconscious, between life and death, as utterly unbefriended
as though he had been in the midst of a wilderness. How he came to
recover he never knew, but it seemed as though his great longing for
home gave him strength to battle through the dreadful fever. Then,
almost too feeble to stand, he was taken to the ship and borne to
England, his body weak from suffering, but his heart strong with hope.

The voyage was a severe one, and before he reached London he had a
relapse, so that when they entered port he had to be carried ashore,
and, too ill to know or care what happened to him, was taken to a
lodging-house and nursed back to health once more by the keeper
herself, whose son was the steward of the ship on which he had crossed.

"You can fancy, Nannie, that I had only one thought all that time--to
get back to you. The first move I was able to make was to the shi