Bisbee daily review., 1914-09-02
CHAPTER XVII.
Once More at Home.

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 In fewer words, with less told, Fran. cois' straightforwardness metamor. phosed the angry lad Harry Hampton into a follower more devoted than he had been even in the first flush of eh. thueiasm for his rescued prisoner. Again the boy dogged his footsteps and adOred him frankly. And Francois, enchanted 10 be friends again with his friend, wondered at the goodness and generosity of the people of this world. It is roughly true that one finds life in general like a mirror: that if one looks into it with a smile and cordial hand held out one meets smiles and outstretched hands in return. Through all his days it had happened so with this child of a French village.
 So that when the day came at last when he stood once more on the deck of the Lovely Lucy, loaded with her cargo of tobacco for foreign ports Francois felt as if he were leaving home and family. The long green car pet of the rolling lawn of Roanoke was crowded with people come to tell him good-by All of his soldier boys were there, the lads trained by him, one and all ready to swear by him or to die for him. Lucy and Harry stood together and the servants were gathered to do him honor, and people had ridden from all over the county for the farewell His eyes dimmed with tears of grate- fitness, he watched them as the gang plank was drawn up and the sails caught the wind and the ship swung slowly out into the stream.
 Come back again-come back again" they called from the shore.
 Francois heard the deep tones of the lads and the rich voices of the ne- groes and he knew that some there could not speak. even as he could not So he waved his hat silently. and the ship moved faster and the faces on the lawn seemed smaller farther away, and yet he heard those following voices calling to him, more faintly:
 Come back again-oh, come back again."
 And with that the negroes had t broken into a melody, and the ship MUSIC. Way Down Upon de S'wanee Ribber, the negroes sang, and the ship was at the turn of the river. The stately walls of Roanoke house, the green slope crowded with figures of his friends the sparkling water front-the current had swept away all of the picture and he could only hear that wailing music of the negroes voices, lower, more ft- ful and now it was gone. He had left Virginia; he was on his way to friends And for all his joy of going, he was heavy-hearted for the leaving.
 The weeks went slowly at sea, but after while he had landed, was in France, was at Vicques. He had seen his mother, with her hair whitened by those years of his prison life-a happy woman now, full of business and re- ! sponsibility, yet always with a rapt look in her face as of one who lived in deep inner quiet Re had talked long talks with his prosperous father and slipped into his old place among his ! brothers and sisters. utterly refusing 1 to be made stranger or great man. And over and over again he had told the story of his capture and the story of his escape
 ! At the castle the returned wanderer 1 picked up no less the thread dropped so suddenly seven years before. The l general, to whom the boy seemed his l boy risen from the dead. would hardly let him from his sight; Alike kept him | in tingling atmosphere of tenderness ! and mockery and sisterly devotion, ! which thrilled him and chilled him and made him blissful and wretched in 1 turns. The puzzle of Alike was more ! unreadable than the puzzle of the l sphinx to the three men who loved her, ! 70 her father and Francois and Pietro. ] The general and Francois spoke of 1t | guardedly, in few words, once in a lcng time, but Pietro never spoke. l Pietro was there often, yet more often ! away in London, where the exiled Mag ] zini, at the head of one wing of Ital- 1 ian patriots. lived and conspired. And | Frnn nm g1 nrrur nrvrr.v,.