his loyal heart.

He could find plenty of excuses for Sandy's silence. In the long years
of their separation many changes had occurred even in a life so humble
as Davie's. First, his cousin Morrison died, and the old business was
scattered and forgotten. Then Davie had to move his residence very
frequently; had even to follow lengthy jobs into various country places,
so that his old address soon became a very blind clew to him.

Then seven years after Sandy's departure the very house in which they
had dwelt was pulled down; an iron factory was built on its site, and
probably a few months afterward no one in the neighborhood could have
told anything at all about Davie Morrison. Thus, unless Sandy should
come himself to find his brother, every year made the probability of a
letter reaching him less and less likely.

Perhaps, as the years went by, the prospect of a reunion became more of
a dream than an expectation. Davie had married very happily, a simple
little body, not unlike himself, both in person and disposition. They
had one son, who, of course, had been called Alexander, and in whom
Davie fondly insisted, the lost Sandy's beauty and merits were
faithfully reproduced.

It is needless to say the boy was extravagantly loved and spoiled.
Whatever Davie's youth had missed, he strove to procure for "Little
Sandy." Many an extra hour he worked for this unselfish end. Life itself
became to him only an implement with which to toil for his boy's
pleasure and advantage. It was a common-place existence enough, and yet
through it ran one golden thread of romance.