Together they set sail for England when the soldier’s work was done, and after a fairly prosperous voyage they landed in that country, and immediately started for Bath, where Wolfe hoped to find relief from his rheumatic troubles, and gain the strength which he had lost during this hard campaign.

“I think my mother will be awaiting me there this time,” he said, with a light in his eyes.  “You have never seen my mother yet, Julian.  Ah, how I long to see her again! she has been such a mother to me!  There are times when I think if I have to give up this profession of arms, and take to a quiet life, I could have a very happy life at home with my mother.  We suit each other so well, and we are like each other in our foibles and weaknesses.  I think I have inherited my cranky health from her, but not her beauty.  You will see for yourself how little like her I am in that respect when we get home.”

To Julian, who had known nothing of the joys of home since he left his valley in the far south of the Western world, and who had no home to call his own now, there was something touching in the eagerness of Wolfe to reach his home and his mother.  His father was not likely to be there.  He would almost certainly be either in Kent, or else abroad; for he still held a command in the army, and the war on the Continent was still raging furiously.  But the mother would be awaiting her son in the house he had written to ask her to secure for him again.  It was within easy reach of the town, and yet it was quiet and secluded, and suited his tastes and habits.

It was almost dark one murky autumn evening when the lumbering coach, which had conveyed the friends the last stages of their journey, drew up at the door of the house.  Lights shone in the windows, and from the open door there streamed out a glowing shaft of yellow light, bespeaking the warm welcome awaiting the tired traveller.

Wolfe had been weary to the verge of exhaustion when they had abandoned the attempt to ride the whole distance, and had secured the heavy coach; but now he seemed to revive to new life, and he sprang from it with some of the activity of youth and strength.

“Mother—­there is my mother!” he exclaimed; and Julian saw him take the steps two at a time, to meet the advancing greeting from the mother who had come to welcome home her son.

Mrs. Wolfe was a distinctly beautiful woman, whose beauty had been but little dimmed by time.  There was a sweet, matronly repose about her, and the brightness of her red-gold hair was dashed with streaks of soft grey beneath the laces with which it was crowned.  But her complexion was clear and fair, and there was a look of soft fragility about her which made the son’s protecting air of solicitude a natural and appropriate one.  She folded him in her arms in a long, rapturous embrace; and Julian stood silently by the while, reverent of that deep love which for the moment could find no expression save in the whispered words: