Thad, gritting his teeth at what he anticipated he would see, watched
the meeting. Hugh answered her pleasant greeting by saying:

"We chanced to come across a man who was inquiring for you, Mrs.
Hosmer, and as he asked us to show him where you lived we have fetched
him along. He can speak for himself now."

The woman turned to look at the tramp. Up to then she had hardly
noticed him, but now something seemed to stir within her bosom.
They saw her start, and bending, look more closely, at the same
time turning paler than usual.

"Oh! who can it be?" she said, weakly. "I seem to see something
familiar about the figure, and the face, but it's impossible, for
my brother Lu has long been dead."

"That's where you're mistaken, Matilda, because I'm that same Luther
Corbley, and still alive and in the flesh, though pretty far gone,
I'm afraid," and he acted as if about to start into one of his
hysterical coughing spells, then thought better of it, because
Matilda was rushing toward him, dropping her bundle as she came.

Paying no attention to his soiled and ragged clothes, the good woman
threw her arms about the neck of her long-lost brother, and actually
kissed him again and again on his rough cheek. Hugh, watching closely,
could see the man assume a pleased look, and once he thought he caught
Wandering Lu actually winking his left eye in his direction, as though
to say: "You see, she never will let me die on the road!"