window reading his newspaper or quietly smoking his evening pipe on a
bench in his side yard. When he had been with me about ten days he said:
"I now feel that I must go and make myself known to my grandson. I am
earning my own subsistence; and, however he may look upon me, he need
not fear that I am come to be a burden upon him. You will not wonder,
sir, that I long to meet with this son of the little baby girl I left
behind me."

I did not wonder, and my wife and I agreed to go with him that very
evening to old Mr. Scott's house. The old gentleman received us very
cordially in his little parlor.

"You are a stranger in this town, sir," he said to Kilbright. "I did not
exactly catch your name--Kilbright?" he said, when it had been repeated
to him, "that is one of my family names, but it is long since I have
heard of anyone bearing it. My mother was a Kilbright, but she had no
brothers, and no uncles of the name. My grandfather was the last of our
branch of the Kilbrights. His name was Amos, and he was a Bixbury man.
From what part of the country do you come, sir?"

"My name is Amos, and I was born in Bixbury."

Old Mr. Scott sat up very straight in his chair. "Young man, that seems
to me impossible!" he exclaimed. "How could there be any Kilbrights in
Bixbury and I not know of it?" Then taking a pair of big silver
spectacles from his pocket he put them on and attentively surveyed his
visitor, whose countenance during this scrutiny was filled with emotion.

Presently the old gentleman took off his spectacles and, rising from his
chair, went into another room. Quickly returning, he brought with him a