A misstep backward, a tumble and a bumped head brought this sport to an end, just as Shannondale was reached, and in her attempts to soothe the little girl, Edith failed to see that the shade was lifted for a single moment, while, standing upon the platform, Richard’s eyes wandered eagerly, greedily over the broad meadow lands and fields of waving grain, over the wooded hills, rich in summer glory, and lastly toward Collingwood, with its roofs and slender tower basking in the July sun.

“Thank God thank God,” he whispered, just as Victor caught his arm, bidding him alight as the train was about to move forward.

“There’s papa, there—­right across the track,” and Dick tugged at his father’s coat skirts, trying to make him comprehend, but Arthur had just then neither eyes nor ears for any thing but his sobbing little daughter, whose forehead he kissed tenderly, thereby curing the pain and healing the wounded heart, of his favorite child, his second golden-haired Nina.  Dick, however, persevered, until his father understood what he meant, and Nina was in danger of being hurt again, so hastily was she dropped when Arthur learned that Richard had come.  There was already a crowd around him, but they made way for Arthur, who was not ashamed to show before them all, how much he loved the noble man, or how glad he was to have him back.

“Richard has grown old,” the spectators said to each other, as they watched him till he entered the carriage.

And so he had.  His hair was quite grey now, and the tall figure was somewhat inclined to stoop, while about the mouth were deep-cut lines which even the heavy mustache could not quite conceal.  But he would grow young again, and even so soon he felt his earlier manhood coming back as he rode along that pleasant afternoon, past the fields where the newly-mown hay, fresh from a recent shower, sent forth its fragrance upon the summer air, while the song of the mowers mingled with the click of the whetting scythe, made sweet, homelike sounds which he loved to hear.  Why did he lean so constantly from the carriage, and why when Victor exclaimed, “The old ruin is there yet,” referring to Grassy Spring did he, too, look across the valley?

Arthur asked himself this question many times, and at last, when they reached Collingwood and Edith had alighted, he bent forward and whispered in Richard’s ear, not an interrogation, but a positive affirmation, which brought back the response,

“Don’t tell her—­not yet, I mean.”  Arthur turned very white and could scarcely stand as he stepped to the ground, for that answer, had taken his strength away, and Victor led him instead of his master into the house, where the latter was greeted joyfully by the astonished servants.

He seemed very weary and after receiving them all, asked to go to his room where he could rest.

“You will find it wholly unchanged,” Arthur said.  “Nothing new but gas.”