This change, and this rush of reflection, took place almost in a moment, and ere she had time to speak she found herself in Mr. Ambrose Gray’s arms.  The tears at once rushed to her eyes, but they were not such tears as she expected to have shed.  Joy there was, but, alas, how much mitigated was its fervency!  And when her brother spoke, the strong, deep, harsh tones of his voice so completely startled her, that she almost believed she was on the breast of her father.  Her tears flowed; but they were mingled with a sense of disappointment that amounted almost to bitterness.

Tom on this occasion forebore to enact the rehearsal scene, as he had done in the case of his father.  His sister’s beauty, at once melancholy but commanding, her wonderful grace, her dignity of manner, added to the influence of her tall, elegant figure, awed him so completely, that he felt himself incapable of aiming at anything like dramatic effect.  Nay, as her warm tears fell upon his face, he experienced a softening influence that resembled emotion, but, like his father, he annexed associations to it that were selfish, and full of low, ungenerous caution.

“My father’s right,” thought he; “I must be both cool and firm here, otherwise it will be difficult not to support her.”

“Well, Lucy,” said her father, with unusual cheerfulness, after Tom had handed her to a seat, “I hope you like your brother.  Is he not a fine, manly young fellow?”

“Is he not my brother, papa?” she replied, “restored to us after so many years; restored when hope had deserted us—­when we had given him up for lost.”

As she uttered the words her voice quivered; a generous reaction had taken place in her breast; she blamed herself for having withheld from him, on account of a circumstance over which he had no control, that fulness of affection, with which she had prepared herself to welcome him.  A sentiment, first of compassion, then of self-reproach, and ultimately of awakened affection, arose in her mind, associated with and made still more tender by the melancholy memory of her departed mother.  She again took his hand, on which the tears now fell in showers, and after a slight pause said,

“I hope, my dear Thomas, you have not suffered, nor been subject to the wants and privations which usually attend the path of the young and friendless in this unhappy world?  Alas, there is one voice—­but is now forever still—­that would, oh, how rapturously! have welcomed you to a longing and a loving heart.”

The noble sincerity of her present emotion was not without its effect upon her brother.  His eyes, in spite of the hardness of his nature, swam in something like moisture, and he gazed upon her with wonder and pride, that he actually was the brother of so divine a creature; and a certain description of affection, such as he had never before felt, for it was pure, warm, and unselfish.

“Oh, how I do long to hear the history of your past life!” she exclaimed.  “I dare say you had many an early struggle to encounter; many a privation to suffer; and in sickness, with none but the cold hand of the stranger about you; but still it seems that God has not deserted you.  Is it not a consolation, papa, to think that he returns to us in a condition of life so gratifying?”