“It is nothing,” he said.  “I would gladly do fifty times more for you.”

“We are bound more closely together now,” she said.  “I owe my life to you.”  And bending over him she kissed him, and slipped away, leaving him very happy indeed.

In the evening he came down to the drawing-room, where he was treated as a hero.  Everybody made so much of him that he began to feel uncomfortable, and took refuge at last with Mr. Robert Keane, who good-naturedly showed him the sketch-book he had filled in Europe, and explained everything to him, as if he found pleasure in it.  And he did find pleasure, for Tom was an enthusiastic listener.

No inquiry had come from Thankful Rest, which had astonished Mrs. Keane very much.  She thought they would be sure to feel anxious about Tom’s recovery.  She did not know Joshua Strong and his sister.  The following morning Dr. Gair said Tom might go home as soon as he liked; so Miss Alice drove him and Lucy to Thankful Rest in the course of the forenoon.  Miss Hepsy was plucking chickens for the market, and tossed up her head when her nephew and niece appeared before her.

“I wonder you’d come back at all after livin’ so long among gentle folk.  It’ll be a long time, I reckon, afore ye get the chance to jump through the ice after Miss Goldthwaite or any other miss.—­Here, Lucy, get off yer hat, and lend a hand wi’ them chickens.—­You’ll find plenty wood in the shed, boy, waitin’ to be chopped, if yer uncle hain’t anything else for ye to do.  Off ye go.”

The contrast between the happy circle they had left and their own home was so painful that Lucy’s tears fell fast as she went to do her aunt’s bidding.  And Tom departed to the wood-shed with a very downcast and rebellious heart.

XI.

Hopes fulfilled.

On the afternoon of the following day Mr. Goldthwaite came to Thankful Rest, accompanied by Mr. Robert Keane.  Lucy opened the door to them; and seeing a stranger with the parson, her aunt shouted to her to show them into the sitting-room.  It was a chill and gloomy place, though painfully clean and tidy—­utterly destitute of comfort.  Lucy shut the door upon them, and went back to tell her aunt that the stranger was Mr. Robert Keane.

“What’s their business here, I’d like to know?” she said as she whisked off her white apron and smoothed her hair beneath her cap.

Lucy knew, but discreetly held her peace.  Miss Hepsy stalked across the passage and into the sitting-room, her looks asking as plainly as any words what they wanted.

“This is Mr. Robert Keane, Miss Strong,” said the minister.  “He wants to see you and your brother, I think, on a little business.”

Miss Hepsy elevated her eyebrows, and shook hands with Mr. Keane in silence.

“Josh is in the barn.  I s’pose I’d better send for him,” she said.

And Mr. Keane answered courteously—­“If you please.”