The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1891-04-10

This father forgot his injured pride.
When old gilbert was informed that
Nicholas would be coming home in a
few days he exclaimed, with triumphant
thanksgiving:
81 knowed hit! Bless Gloryr'
"Hukkom you knowed hit?" sneered
Glory-Ann. SIS you tryin' ter mex out
you is Solomon en- de prophets?"
"What / done tell you, Missy? pur-
sued old Gilbert, serenely Indifferent to
this taunt. "Put yo' 'pendence in Mawse
Gin'ral Fletcher"
"He had nothing to do with it'll" cried
Missy Indignantly. "Brer Nicholas wrote
of his own accord; he said never word
of your 'Mawse Gin'ral Fletcher won't
be indebted to Capt. Fletcher. We've
returned all he did for Brer Nicholas,
and there's an end Of him."
sis dasso?" said old Gilbert regretfully.
"Well! WELT Tube shot,"
"Hukkom you is so sot beginst de
capen all of suddenly? Glory-Ann re-
monstrated. "Times is heerd you say
CLANCY can't mex waffles fifteen fur him
to eat, en- now you talk lax he wuz good
radiance! You is jes' ez onsartin ez
chile, Missy; dat you is"
81 wish / were a child" Missy sighed,
with vague, unwilling apprehension of
the truth Of her Aunt Elvira's declara-
ton that the old joy could never come
again. As the day for her brothers re-
turn drew near she had discovered in
herself, to her sorrow and confusion, an
inexplicable shrinking from that long
delayed meeting, feverish eagerness to
have the agony of joy over and done
with.
In her anxiety to eliminate as much as
possible of the element of pain and en-
barrassment that she could not but feel
waited upon this first meeting, she es-
sayed to coax her father to his best be-
havior. "You will not look stern, my
father? she entreated, with smile that
struggled to express n confidence she did
not feel. "For the old time is over; for
get-forget the past"
The colonel frownod impatiently; but
n little time ago this same inordinate
Winifred had declared that to forget was
death.
81 have written Nicholas to come
home; have made no conditions" he
said, a little coldly. Il never do things
| by halves, and / shall not behave In
manner unbecoming Thorne."
Missy sighed and said no more.
It was dark and stormy night when
| Nicholas rode away from Thorne Hill,
young, buoyant, ardent, defiant; he re-
turned on bright spring day, broken,
| sobered and saddened. And he came
not alone; he brought with him not only
his wife and child and the redoubtable
Roxanna-he brought with him also
the shadows of the long, sad years of alb
| sence and arrangement. They wrapt
him about as with q mantle; they made
themselves visible in his hair, prema-
turely gray; in the deep lines that mark
ed his handsome face, in the sadness OF
his eyes, in his dropping figure, and In
the carelessness with which he wore his
shabby, threadbare clothes. Missy would
never have known him, and the shock Of
finding him SO changed went nigh to
break her heart.
| It was meeting in which sorrow In
evitably outweighed joy. The colonel
would have preferred to see his son first
alone, but his pride and his shyness made
him shrink from exacting this; and when
the carriage that brought Nicholas drove
to the door he stood on the piazza erect,
composed, with Miss Elvira trembling on
one side of him and Winifred trembling
on the other. while old Gilbert and Glory
Ann, in jealous rivalry, maintained O re-
spectful distance in the rear. But at the
sight of Nicholas, as he came up the
steps, this father forgot his injured pride,
his anger, his disappointed hopes; he re-
membered only that this, his son who
was lost, was found Jsigain, and he took
The exile in his arms.
And there was great silence, broken
at last by old Gilbert's devout ejacula-
ticn. Praise be ter Gloryi" for which
| Glory-Ann rebuked him with vigorous
thrust of her elbow, and the inquiry:
sis you plum forgot de manners you tux
away fun Thorne Hill?"
Dosia, beautiful still, with certain
majestic grace, in spite of her poor and
faded dress, stood apart, proudly shy;
for at this supreme moment no one
thought of her or the boy, whom gaunt,
grim giantess held in her arms with an
air of determined proprietorship.
To Missy her brother looked like a
stranger, but when he turped to her she
| threw herself into his arms with pas
sionate burst of tears that had, alasl lit
tie kinship with joy. This was not the
brother she had lost. The past was never
to return.
The colonel gave his sons wife more
! gracious welcome than Missy had dared