into the low clear embers. My father cast his eyes round the room, and
after surveying his brother for some moments he said, almost in a
whisper,--

"My son has seen the Trevanions. They remember us, Roland."

The Captain sprang to his feet and began whistling,--a habit with him
when he was much disturbed.

"And Trevanion wishes to see us. Pisistratus promised to give him our
address: shall he do so, Roland?"

"If you like it," answered the Captain, in a military attitude, and
drawing himself up till he looked seven feet high.

"I should like it," said my father, mildly. "Twenty years since we
met."

"More than twenty," said my uncle, with a stern smile; "and the season
was--the fall of the leaf!"

"Man renews the fibre and material of his body every seven years," said
my father; "in three times seven years he has time to renew the inner
man. Can two passengers in yonder street be more unlike each other than
the soul is to the soul after an interval of twenty years? Brother, the
plough does not pass over the soil in vain, nor care over the human
heart. New crops change the character of the land; and the plough must
go deep indeed before it stirs up the mother stone."

"Let us see Trevanion," cried my uncle; then, turning to me, he said