expressing some contempt for the dingy hues which prevail among the legs of men at home.  He wore a very large checked waistcoat, and a stout square coat of the same material.  There was no look of poverty, and no doubt he had that day eaten a substantial dinner; but the anxious mother was desirous of feeding him immediately, and whispered to Jane some instructions as to cold beef, which was to be added to the tea and toast.

As they examined him, holding him by the arms and hands, and gazing up into his face, the same idea occurred to all of them.  Though they knew him very well now, they would hardly have known him had they met him suddenly in the streets.  He seemed to have grown fifteen years older during the seven years of his absence.  His face had become thin and long and almost hollow.  His beard went all round under his chin, and was clipped into the appearance of a stiff thick hedge—­equally thick, and equally broad, and equally protrusive at all parts.  And within this enclosure it was shorn.  But his mouth had sunk in, and his eyes.  In colour he was almost darker than brown.  You would have said that his skin had been tanned black, but for the infusion of red across it here and there.  He seemed to be in good present health, but certainly bore the traces of many hardships ‘And here you are all just as I left you,’ he said, counting up his sisters.

‘Not exactly,’ said Mrs. Rewble, remembering her family.  ’And Matilda has got two.’

‘Not husbands, I hope,’ said Dick.

‘Oh, Dick! that is so like you,’ said Jane, getting up and kissing him again in her delight.  Then Mr. Rewble came forward, and the brothers-in-law renewed their old acquaintance.

‘It seems just like the other day,’ said Dick, looking round upon the rose-bushes.

‘Oh my boy! my darling, darling boy!’ said the mother, who had hurried up-stairs for her shawl, conscious of her rheumatism even amidst the excitement of her son’s return.  ’Oh, Dick!  This is the happiest day of all my life.  Wouldn’t you like something better than tea?’ This she said with many memories and many thoughts; but still, with a mother’s love, unable to refrain from offering what she thought her son would wish to have.

‘There ain’t anything better,’ said Dick very solemnly.

‘Nothing half so good to my thinking,’ said Mrs. Rewble, imagining that by a word in season she might help the good work.

The mother’s eyes were filled with tears, but she did not dare to speak a word.  Then there was a silence for a few moments.  ’Tell us all about it, Dick,’ said the father.  ‘There’s whisky inside if you like it.’  Dick shook his head solemnly,—­but, as they all thought, with a certain air of regret.  Tell us what you have to say,’ repeated the doctor.

‘I’m sworn off these two years.’

‘Touched nothing for two years?’ said the mother exultingly, with her arms and shawl again round her son’s neck.