and the present was one of them. Juliuspoor prodigal as he might be--had fed on his own swines' husks silently, far away; he had never either disgraced or wronged any one, least of all his brother. Heavy grief though he had caused, there was mixed with it none of that aching bitterness which Edna felt in her own heart, and the mute contempt which she read in her husband's face, whenever she chanced to mention her sister. Therefore, her rejoicing over the lost and found was as unclouded as her love-and she had always loved Julius. The wonderful news could not be long hid, especially in this loving family, where the parents kept none but necessary secrets from their children. The mother was soon the centre of an eager group, asking all manner of questions, and evidently regarding the whole matter as a sort of real-life fairy tale. "Don't bother mamma, children," said Julius, with tender authoritativeness. "Come away with me, and I'll tell you as much as I know, while she reads papa's letter." Dr. Stedman had written, not telegraphed, that he might startle her less and give her the latest intelligence, and had sent his letter by the faithful Tommy Fox, who was to remain that night at Brook Street, and bring Mrs. Stedman back with him the first thing next morning. "I do not want you until the morning," wrote William to his wife. "You must get a good night's rest, for I fear you may have some days, or perhaps weeks, of heavy nursing here. However, if he survives the next twentyfour hours, he will live, I doubt not. I might have sent for you to-night, but I thought it best not." Edna felt also that it was best not-that not even his wife should share in this solemn watch which William kept so faithfully-uncertain whether after all his brother might not slip away, unrecognizing and unrecognized, into the next world. But even if Julius died, it would be a lighter burden to bear than that which Dr. Stedman had borne so patiently, so silently, all these years; not suffering it to darken his home-life, which would indeed have been both foolish and wrong. Still it was there -and his wife knew it. Almost every human heart has some such dark chamber in it; she had had hers too. Now, was the grief to be lifted off or not? Edna could not tell; nor William. He had only said, in reference to the future, one thing -"If Julius recovers, will my wife take him home?" At which the wife smiled to herself. There was no need to answer that question. So, it was necessary to prepare for possibilities; and first, by telling the children as much of their uncle's history as she thought advisable. They were not inquisitive or worrying children. Still they had their natural curiosity, increased by the very few facts she was able to give them; indeed little more than that Uncle Julius, whom they had supposed to be dead, had reappeared, and at last come home. "But why did he not come home before, mamma?" "Being a soldier he could not do that, I suppose.' "Still, he might have written," said Julius, a little severely. "It was unkind of him to let you and papa imagine he was dead, and grieve after him for so many years." "People sometimes do unkind things without meaning it, or, at least, without definitely intending it," said the mother, gently. "When you are as old as I am, my son, you will have learned that-" Here she stopped, hindered by the great difficulty with all young peoplehow to keep them sternly to the right; and yet while preaching strict justice, to remember mercy. "In truth, my children," added she, with that plain candor which had been her safeguard all her life, and taught her sons to be as fearlessly true as herself, "it is useless to question me; for I know almost nothing, except that papa has found his brother again, which will make him so happy. You like papa to be happy, all of you?" "Ah, yes!" and they ceased troubling her with their wonderings, but with the brilliant imagination of youth darted at once to the possibility of Uncle Julius's appearance among them, making endless speculations and arrangements concerning him. The twins, hearing he had been a soldier, brought out their favorite toy-cannon, with a man behind it, which man they immediately named "Uncle Julius." Robert, who had set his heart upon wandering half over the world, exulted in the thought of all the information he should get about foreign countries; and Will, after much meditation, leaped at once to a most brilliant conclusion. "That folio of drawings you keep, beside the old easel in your bedroom, mamma—were they not done by Uncle Julius? You said he was an artist before he went away to India." "Yes." "And clever, too, to judge by those sketches, which you have never properly shown me yet, and will not let me have to copy; very good they are, some of them," continued Will, with the slightly patronizing tone of the younger generation. "Of course, he is too old to make an artist now; but he might help to make me one." "Perhaps," said the mother, and wondered whether Uncle Julius would recognize, as his brother and she had long since began to co, the eternal law of progression, whereby on generation slips aside, or is set aside, and another takes its place-a law righteous and easy of belief to happy parents, but hard to others, who have to drop down, solitary and childless, into the great sea of oblivion, leaving not a trace behind. As she looked on her bright, brave boys growing up around her, in whom her memory and their father's would live, long after both were in the dust, Edna thought of wisdom, He would take it to Himself, to de Julius, and sighed. "Now, my little man, you must chatter no more, but be off to bed; for mamma has a great deal to do to-night." Nevertheless, she was not afraid, though it was a small and already full house in which she had to make room for the wanderer; but the capacity of people's houses often corresponds with that of their hearts. And she had good servants a good mistress usually has- and helpful, unselfish children. Her eldest, especially, followed her about the house, assisting in her plans and arrangements almost as cleverly as a daughter, and yet so manly, so wise, so reliable that for the hundredth time his mother pitied all women who had not a son like Julius. with it according to His omnipotent will, which must be perfect, or it would not be omnipotent. There was a figure standing at the ale-house door-her husband watching for her. Edna looked rather than asked the trembling question, "Is he alive?" which William's smile answered at once. He had held up bravely till now; but when he found himself alone with his wife he broke down. Edna took his head to her bosom, and let him weep there, almost like one of his own little children. But there was no time to waste in mere emotion—the patient must not be left for ten minutes. Nothing but constant watching could save the life which flickered like a dying taper, half in and half out of the body. Julius might slip away at any moment, giving no sign, as all the night through he had given none. was impossible to say whether he even recog brain produced stupor rather than delirium. It Yet when he and she sat together over the fire, the house being silent and all preparations made, both for her temporary absence and for her return with poor Uncle Julius, if he recov-nized his brother, though the pressure on the ered with the reaction from her first joyful excitement over-anxious thoughts came into Edna's mind. Was she right in bringing into her household and among her young sons this man, who might be so changed-whose life for fifteen years and more was utterly unknown to her, except that he had sunk deplorably from his former estate? When her eldest son, looking at her with his honest, innocent, boyish eyes, said, earnestly, "Now, mamma, tell me all about poor Uncle Julius,” Edna trembled. "He lies, looking as quiet as a baby," said Will, with a great sob. "I have cut his hair and beard; he is quite bald. You would hardly know him. I wonder if he will know you, Edna ?” "Let us come and see," answered Mrs. Stelman, as she laid aside her bonnet, and made silently all her little arrangements for the long, long sisterly watch, of which God only knew the end. Her husband followed her with eyes full of love. "There is nobody to do this but you, that my But only for a moment. She knew well, her anxious life had often taught her, the plain fact that we can not live two days at once; beyond a certain prudent forecasting of consequences we have but to see the right for the time being, and act upon it. "My son," she answered, cautiously, as her judgment prompted, but honestly, as mothers ought who have their children's souls in their hands, "Uncle Julius has had a very hard, sad life. It may have been not even a good life. I do not know. But papa does; and he understands what is right far better than we. He says he wishes Uncle Julius to come home-he is so glad and thankful to have him at home. So of course it is all right. We can trust papa, both you and I." 'To be sure we can," said Julius, and looked his father's very image while he spoke: so that Edna had no farther fear even for her darling boy. It was little more than ten in the forenoon, and Holt Common was bathed in the brightest spring sunshine, when Edna crossed it under Tommy Fox's guidance, to take the shortest cut to the "Goat and Compasses." She scarcely looked at the sweet sights around her-the green mosses, the perfumed gorse-so full was her heart, trembling between hope and fear, wondering whether it would please God to give this poor wrecked life into their hands-hers and Will's-to be made whole and sound again, even in this world; or whether, in His infinite wife. You would do it, I knew." She smiled. "And I have made things as light for you as I can. Mrs. Fox will take the nightnursing. She is evidently very fond of himbut every body was always fond of Julius. My poor dear lad!" The strong fraternal love-rare between men, but, when it does happen, the heavenliest, noblest bond, a help through life, and faithful even unto death-shone in William's eyes; and his wife honored and loved him for it. "Come," she whispered, "perhaps, please God, we may save him yet. Come and take me to Julius's room.” For another day and night the poor brainworn out with misery, and disordered by the continual use of opium-lay in a torpid condition, of which it was impossible to foretell the next change. Then sharp physical pain supervened, and forced into a kind of semi-consciousness the bewildered mind. The day he had spent out on the common(Tommy Fox afterward confessed to having seen Mr. Stone lying for hours under a damp furzebush)-brought back his old rheumatic torments. He had over again the same illness, rheumatic fever, through which his brother had nursed him twenty years ago. Strangely enough, this agony of body was the most merciful thing that could have happened to the mind. It seemed to annihilate the present entirely, and thrust him back to the days of his youth. He took quite naturally the presence of Will and Edna, and very soon began to call them by their right names, and comprehend, in a confused way, that he was under their charge. And in his total helplessness the great difficulty which William had foreseen, the stopping of the supplies of opium, became easier than they had anticipated. After he had been brought back, as it were, from the very gates of the grave, to some slight recognition of where he was, and what had happened to him, he seemed to wake up, as people often do after very severe illnesses, with the freshness of a child-asking no questions, but helplessly and obediently clinging to those about him, till sometimes none of his nurses could look at him without tears. Gradually he passed out of sickness into convalescence, began visibly to amend in body, though how far his mind was alive to the things around him it was difficult to say. He noticed nothing much-neither the changes which Edna had gradually instituted in his ragged wardrobe, nor the comforts which she gathered around him in his homely room. He spoke little, and his whole intelligence seemed to be absorbed in trying to bear, as patiently as he could, his physical sufferings, which, for a long time, were very great. When at last Edna, to whose ministering care he had grown quite accustomed, proposed taking him "home," he assented, but without asking the slightest question as to what and where "home" was. Letty, either as Letty or as Mrs. Vanderdecken, he never once named. Indeed, in the complete absorption of the time, neither Edna nor her husband thought much about her themselves. The near neighborhood of Holywell Park troubled them not; the place was half shut up, the mistress being away at Brighton. Thence she never sent, never wrote; at which they were neither surprised nor sorry. But the night before they had settled to quit Mrs. Fox's kindly roof the good woman brought to Mrs. Stedman, for whom she had conceived a great admiration, a note from the Hall. "I don't know if you knows Mrs. Vanderdecken, ma'am, but perhaps you do, as it was through her little girl I heard of Dr. Stedman. And she's a kind lady-a very kind lady indeed: he saw her the day before he was ill. Didn't you, Sir?" "Then I suppose he must be obeyed. When we were lads, kind as he was to me, Will always made me obey him." Julius siniled faintly, yet more like his own smile than Edna had ever seen yet. "Where is Will to-night?" "Gone home, to get ready the house for us to-morrow, you know. Besides, he has his work to do." "Ah, yes! and mine is all done. I shirked it once; and now, when I want to do it, I can not. Why do you and Will take me home? I would never have come of myself. I shall only be a burden upon you. Do you know, Edna, that I have not a half-penny in the world?" "Yes." "Except, of course, my pension as a soldier -a common soldier, which I have been-I ceased to be a gentleman years ago." Edna smiled. "Do not mock me, it is true. You had better not take me back. I shall only be a trouble to you. Nay, even a disgrace. Will is an honest, honorable, prosperous man, while I- What will all your friends say?" "We shall never ask them. But," added Will's wife, in reasoning not her own, for her own failed her, "it is just the story of the piece of silver-And when she hath found it she calleth her friends and neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found my piece that was lost."" Julius turned away bitterly. "Don't talk to me out of the Bible. I do not believe in the Bible. Only"-as if he feared he had hurt her -"I believe in you." "Thank you, dear." She often called him "dear" now, in the tone she used to her own children; for, in many ways, Julius had grown so very like a child. "And I believe in the Bible. Therefore, I came here to nurse you, and keep you alive if we could. Therefore, as soon as you are stronger, I mean to take you home, to begin a new life, and never to speak of the old life any more.' "Quite sure. Now go to sleep." "One minute"-and Julius lifted himself up and caught Edna's hand. "Tell her-your sister-that for the child's sake I have forgiven her all. I will never harm her. Her daughter knows nothing-never will know. Say I forgive her, and bid her good-by from me.' 66 "I will," said Edna; and then, still holding her hand, Julius dropped into the quietest slumber which he had yet known. When alone for the night Mrs. Stedman read over again the dirty-looking note, which had lain a whole day in the pocket of a small child, one of Mrs. Vanderdecken's Sunday-class, by whom it had been sent. Letty's cowardice had followed her to the last. There was in the missive neither beginning nor ending. Nothing that could identify it or its writer, or betray any fact that it was safer to conceal. "I know all, and was glad your husband had been sent for to the poor man, you and he being the proper persons to manage the business. Give him my best wishes, and I hope he will soon get well. If I could do any thing-but it is better not-you will understand that. Only, if you like to come and talk it over with me, I shall be very glad to see you, for I am quite alone here, though I shall return to Brighton in two days." Edna closed the letter with a heavy sigh, and sat long pondering over it, and how she should answer it; whether it would not be advisable, under the circumstances, and especially with regard to a future that was very difficult at best, to go and see Letty, as she asked, in her own house, and, calmly but not unkindly, "talk it over," as she proposed, thus closing forever the grave of a past that could return no more. In her husband's absence Edna was obliged to trust to her own judgment, and what she knew his would be. He had said more than once that nothing should induce him to enter his sister-in-law's door, nor did his wife dissent from this. There is a limit beyond which selfrespect can not pass; and charity itself changes its character when it becomes the subserviency of weak right to rampant wrong. But Mrs. Stedman, who had not an atom of weakness about her, or pride either, felt no hesitation whatever in crossing, just once and no more, her sister's grand threshold; neither humbly nor scornfully, but with a kindly sisterly heart. If she could do Letty any good, why, well! If not, still it was well too. They would both see clearly, once for all, what their future relations to one another were to be. So next morning, before Julius was well awake, without saying any thing to him or any body, she started off across the common to Holywell Hall. It was a very fine house, the finest Mrs. Stedman had ever entered; for her busy domestic life and narrow means had, until lately, kept her very much out of society. She admired it extremely, for she had such pleasure in any thing orderly, fit, and beautiful. Yet, when her little feet trod on the polished black and white marble of the hall, and followed two tall liver- | at all for doing so. I was only too thankful ied footmen up a magnificent staircase, stately, to get her safe away, where she would hear no silent, and chill, her heart sank a little, and she more of that dreadful story, or of him, poor felwas glad fate had not burdened her with her low; he made her so fond of him. She cried sister's splendid lot. It did not occur to her, her eyes out till I told her Dr. Stedman was in her utter lack of self-consciousness, that, had with him, and that he was getting well. such been the case, the probabilities were that is true, is it not?" Holywell Hall would have been as bright as Brook Street. The footman went before, and she was following him at once into Mrs. Vanderdecken's morning-room, when she heard her sister's voice within, and hesitated. "Stedman is the name, Wood?—I don't know -yes, I do know the lady. Show her into the yellow drawing-room. Oh, she's here." Rather awkwardly Mrs. Vanderdecken came forward, merely to shake hands, till, the servant having closed the door behind him, she stooped and kissed her sister, though not with much demonstration of affection. "I am very glad to see you. It is extremely kind of you to come. You see I couldn't come to you-it was quite an impossibility." "Certainly." Then Letty burst out: "Oh! Edna, do give me a little comfort. I have been so frightened-so thoroughly miserable. This is indeed a wretched business." "I do not see that, since it has ended so well in Julius's recovery. He might have died. It was such a merciful chance that your little girl wrote to my husband." "Yes; and I assure you I did not scold her That "Yes, thank God!" "And nobody here knows who he is; but, like Gertrude, people think him Mr. Stone?" "No-Mr. Stedman," said Edna, coldly. "My husband was not likely to be ashamed of his brother, or to conceal his relationship to him. But you need not be alarmed; we have carefully hidden our connection with you. one here has the least idea that you are my sister." No "Thank you, thank you!" And then, some dim notion striking Letty that it was an odd thing to express gratitude for, she added, halfapologetically, "You see, we are obliged to be careful. In our position people do talk of us so. And he was so violent, so cruel, to meJulius, I mean. And there was something so disreputable-so dreadful-about his story. You know it, of course." "No; he has told us almost nothing; and we are determined to inquire nothing. My husband believes less in the confession of sins than in the forsaking of them. Unless Julius speaks himself we shall never ask him a single question about his past life." "Well, perhaps that is your best course; any other would be so very inconvenient. I de |