"Hame!"

But as he spoke there settled over his face a smile so tender and so full of happiness, that John Broom held his breath as he watched him.  As the light of sunrise creeps over the face of some rugged rock, it crept from chin to brow, and the pale blue eyes shone tranquil, like water that reflects heaven.

And when it had passed it left them still open, but gems that had lost their ray.

LUCK GOES.—­AND COMES AGAIN.

The spirit does not always falter in its faith because the flesh is weary with hope deferred.  When week after week, month after month, and year after year, went by and John Broom was not found, the disappointment seemed to “age” the little ladies, as Thomasina phrased it.  But yet they said to the parson, “We do not regret it.”

“God forbid that you should regret it,” said he.

And even the lawyer (whose heart was kinder than his tongue) abstained from taunting them with his prophecies, and said, “The force of habits of early education is a power as well as that of inherent tendencies.  It is only for your sake that I regret a too romantic benevolence.”  And Miss Betty and Miss Kitty tried to put the matter quite away.  But John Broom was very closely bound up with the life of many years past.  Thomasina mourned him as if he had been her son, and Thomasina being an old and valuable servant, it is needless to say that when she was miserable no one in the house was permitted to be quite at ease.

As to Pretty Cocky, he lived, but Miss Kitty fancied that he grew less pretty and drooped upon his polished perch.

There were times when the parson felt almost conscience-stricken because he had encouraged the adoption of John Broom.  Disappointments fall heavily upon elderly people.  They may submit better than the young, but they do not so easily revive.  The little old ladies looked greyer and more nervous, and the little old house looked greyer and gloomier than of old.

Indeed there were other causes of anxiety.  Times were changing, prices were rising, and the farm did not thrive.  The lawyer said that the farm-bailiff neglected his duties, and that the cowherd did nothing but drink; but Miss Betty trembled, and said they could not part with old servants.

The farm-bailiff had his own trouble, but he kept it to himself.  No one knew how severely he had beaten John Broom the day before he ran away, but he remembered it himself with painful clearness.  Harsh men are apt to have consciences, and his was far from easy about the lad who had been entrusted to his care.  He could not help thinking of it when the day’s work was over, and he had to keep filling up his evening whiskey-glass again and again to drown disagreeable thoughts.

The whiskey answered this purpose, but it made him late in the morning:  it complicated business on market days, not to the benefit of the farm, and it put him at a disadvantage in dealing with the drunken cowherd.