What was he to do?  He durst not disturb them so late at night.  He remembered that they would not have heard a syllable of or from him since he had run away from Roslyn, and he feared the effect of so sudden an emotion as his appearance at that hour might excite.

So under the star-light he lay down to sleep on a cold bank beside the gate, determining to enter early in the morning.  It was long before he slept, but at last weary nature demanded her privilege with importunity, and gentle sleep floated over him like a dark dewy cloud, and the sun was high in heaven before he woke.

It was about half-past nine in the morning, and Mrs. Trevor, with Fanny, was starting to visit some of her poor neighbors, an occupation full of holy pleasure to her kind heart, and in which she had found more than usual consolation during the heavy trials which she had recently suffered; for she had loved Eric and Vernon as a mother does her own children, and now Vernon, the little cherished jewel of her heart, was dead—­Vernon was dead, and Eric, she feared, not dead but worse than dead, guilty, stained, dishonored.  Often had she thought to herself, in deep anguish of heart, “Our darling little Vernon dead—­and Eric fallen and ruined!”

“Look at that poor fellow asleep on the grass,” said Fanny, pointing to a sailor boy, who lay coiled up on the bank beside the gate.  “He has had a rough bed, mother, if he has spent the night there, as I fear.”

Mrs. Trevor had grasped her arm.  “What is Flo’ doing?” she said, stopping, as the pretty little spaniel trotted up to the boy’s reclining figure, and began snuffing about it, and then broke into a quick short bark of pleasure, and fawned and frisked about him, and leapt upon him, joyously wagging his tail.

The boy rose with the dew wet from the flowers upon his hair; he saw the dog, and at once began playfully to fondle it, and hold its little silken head between his hands; but as yet he had not caught sight of the Trevors.

“It is—­oh, good heavens! it is Eric,” cried Mrs. Trevor, as she flew towards him.  Another moment and he was in her arms, silent, speechless, with long arrears of pent-up emotion.

“O my Eric, our poor, lost, wandering Eric—­come home; you are forgiven, more than forgiven, my own darling boy.  Yes, I knew that my prayers would be answered; this is as though we received you from the dead.”  And the noble lady wept upon his neck, and Eric, his heart shaken with accumulated feelings, clung to her and wept.

Deeply did that loving household rejoice to receive back their lost child.  At once they procured him a proper dress, and a warm bath, and tended him with every gentle office of female ministering hands.  And in the evening, when he told them his story in a broken voice of penitence and remorse, their love came to him like a sweet balsam, and he rested by them, “seated, and clothed, and in his right mind.”