We had time for no more,--we were in the arbor. There, a table was
spread with wine and fruit,--the gentlemen were at their dessert; and
those gentlemen were my father, Uncle Jack, Mr. Squills, and--tall,
lean, buttoned-to-the-chin--an erect, martial, majestic, and imposing
personage, who seemed worthy of a place in my great ancestor's "Boke of
Chivalrie."

All rose as I entered; but my poor father, who was always slow in his
movements, had the last of me. Uncle Jack had left the very powerful
impression of his great seal-ring on my fingers; Mr. Squills had patted
me on the shoulder and pronounced me "wonderfully grown;" my new-found
relative had with great dignity said, "Nephew, your hand, sir,--I am
Captain de Caxton;" and even the tame duck had taken her beak from her
wing and rubbed it gently between my legs, which was her usual mode of
salutation, before my father placed his pale hand on my forehead, and
looking at me for a moment with unutterable sweetness, said, "More and
more like your mother,--God bless you!"

A chair had been kept vacant for me between my father and his brother.
I sat down in haste, and with a tingling color on my cheeks and a rising
at my throat, so much had the unusual kindness of my father's greeting
affected me; and then there came over me a sense of my new position. I
was no longer a schoolboy at home for his brief holiday: I had returned
to the shelter of the roof-tree to become myself one of its supports. I
was at last a man, privileged to aid or solace those dear ones who had
ministered, as yet without return, to me. That is a very strange crisis
in our life when we come home for good. Home seems a different thing;
before, one has been but a sort of guest after all, only welcomed and
indulged, and little festivities held in honor of the released and happy
child. But to come home for good,--to have done with school and