So, then, wrapped in my great-coat and my silence, I performed my
journey; and on the evening of the second day I reached the old-fashioned
brick house. How shrill on my ears sounded the bell! How strange and
ominous to my impatience seemed the light gleaming across the windows of
the hall! How my heart beat as I watched the face of the servant who
opened the gate to my summons!

"All well?" cried I.

"All well, sir," answered the servant, cheerfully. "Mr. Squills, indeed,
is with master, but I don't think there is anything the matter."

But now my mother appeared at the threshold, and I was in her arms.

"Sisty, Sisty! my dear, dear son--beggared, perhaps--and my fault--mine."

"Yours! Come into this room, out of hearing,--your fault?"

"Yes, yes! for if I had had no brother, or if I had not been led away,--
if I had, as I ought, entreated poor Austin not to--"

"My dear, dearest mother, you accuse yourself for what, it seems, was my
uncle's misfortune,--I am sure not even his fault! [I made a gulp
there.] No, lay the fault on the right shoulders,--the defunct shoulders
of that horrible progenitor, William Caxton the printer; for though I
don't yet know the particulars of what has happened, I will lay a wager
it is connected with that fatal invention of printing. Come, come! my
father is well, is he not?"