He spoke hastily, and held her by the arm, as if he feared she would slide away in the moonlight.

“Dorcas Fox is here, Swan.  I am Dorcas.”

“You? you Dorcas Fox?” said he, roughly.  “Was it a ghost I saw?” he murmured,—­“or is this a ghost?”

He had seen a bud, fresh, dewy, and blooming; and now he brushed away from his thought the wilted and brown substitute.  Not a line of the face, not a tone of the voice, did he remember.

“Don’t you see anything about me, Swan,—­anything that reminds you of Dorcas Fox?” said the woman, eagerly, and clasping her hands again.

His eyes glared at her in the moonlight, as he exclaimed,—­

“No, my God! not a feature!”

CHAPTER VII.

“Well, I expect I be changed, Swan,” said Dorcas, sadly.

She said nothing about his change; and, besides, she had recognized him.

“They say my Dorcas favors me, and looks as I used to.  Come, come up to the house; Mr. Mowers’ll be glad to see you.  You don’t know how many times we’ve talked you over, and wondered if ever you’d come back!  But, dear sakes! you can’t think what a kind of a shock you give me, Swan!  Why, I expected nothin’ but what you was dead, years ago!”

Here was a pretty expression of sentiment!  Swan only answered, faintly,—­

“Did you?” and rubbed his eyes to wake himself up.

They walked slowly towards the house.  The great red walls stood staring and peaceful, as of old, and the milkers were coming in from the farmyard with their pails foaming and smoking, as they used to do fifteen years before.  In the door-way, with his pipe in his mouth, stood Henry Mowers, the monarch of all he surveyed.  He had come, by marriage, to own the Fox farm of twelve hundred acres.  He had woodland and pasture-land, cattle and horses, like Job,—­and in his house, health, peace, and children:  dark-eyed Dorcas and Jemima, white-headed Obed and Zephaniah, and the twins that now clambered over his shoulder and stood on his broad, strong palms,—­two others, Philip and Henry, had died in the cradle.

Dorcas the younger stood in the doorway, and leaned gracefully towards her father.  She whispered to him, as the stranger approached,—­

“There’s the man coming now with mother!  I thought’t was a crazy man!”

The mother came eagerly forward, anxious to prevent the unrecognizing glance, which she knew must be painful.

“What do you think, Henry?  Swan Day has come back, just in time to spend Thanksgiving with us!”

“Swan Day?  I want to know!” answered Henry, mechanically holding out his hand, and then shaking it longer and longer in the vain attempt to recall the youthful features.

“Well! if ever!” he continued, turning to his wife, with increased astonishment at the perspicacity she had shown, while Swan’s eyes were fixed on the slender figure of the young Dorcas, seeming to see the river of life flowing by and far beyond him.