unaccustomed interest, in no wise allayed by the letter I was holding.

"So he is here," said my Uncle Jason.

"He is just arrived," I answered.

"I had heard of it," he remarked thoughtfully. "And you will see
him, Henry?"

"Yes," I replied, "since she asked me to."

"She had asked you? Your mother? You did not tell me that." His voice
had been sharp and reproachful, and then he had sighed. "After all," he
went on more gently, "he is your father, and you must respect him as
such, Henry, hard as it is to do so. I am sorry, almost, that he and I
have quarreled, for in many ways your father was a remarkable man who
might have gone far, except for his failing. God knows I did my best to
help him."

And he sighed again at the small success of his efforts and returned to
the papers that lay before him on the counting house table. His business
had become engrossing of late, and gave him little leisure.

"Do not be too hard on him, Henry," he said, as I departed.

It was ten years since I had seen my father, ten years when we change
more than we do during the rest of a lifetime. Ten years back we had
lived in a great house with lawns that ran down to the river where our
ships pulled at their moorings. My father and I had left the house
together--I for school, and my father--I have never learned where he had