But Harry looked white and wretched.  He had been driven, as it were, out of the road of destruction, but he felt like a man in a pathless desert who saw no road of any kind.  The fear of a lost child was in his heart.

“What is it, Harry?” asked John, for he saw that his brother was faint and exhausted.

“Well, John, I have eaten nothing since morning—­and my heart sinks.  I have been doing wrong.  I am sorry.  I ought to have come to you.”

“To be sure.  Now you shall have food, and then I have something to tell you that will make you happy.”  So while Harry ate, John told him of the renting of Yoden and laid before him all that it promised.  And as John talked the young man’s countenance grew radiant and he clasped his brother’s hand and entered with almost boyish enthusiasm into every detail of the Yoden plan.  He was particularly delighted at the prospect of turning the fine old house into an unique and beautiful modern home.  He laughed joyously as he saw in imagination the blending of the old carved oak furniture with his own pretty maple and rosewood.  His artistic sense saw at once how the high dark chimney-pieces would glow and color with his bric-a-brac, and how his historical paintings would make the halls and stairways alive with old romance; and his copies of Turner and other landscapes would adorn the sitting-and sleeping-rooms.

John entered fully into his delight and added, “Why, Ramsby told me that there were some fine old carpets yet on the floors and Genoese velvet window-curtains lined with rose-colored satin which were not yet past use.”

“Oh, delightful!” cried Harry.  “We will blend Lucy’s white lace ones with them.  John, I am coming into the dream of my life.”

“I know it, Harry.  The farm is small but it will be enough.  You will soon have it like a garden.  Harry, you were born to live on the land and by the land, and when you get to Yoden your feverish dream of cities and their fame and fortune will pass, even from your memory.  Lucy and you are going to be so busy and happy, happier than you ever were before!”

It was however several days before the change could be properly entered upon.  There were points of law to settle and the packing and removal to arrange for, and though John was anxious and unhappy he could not leave Harry and Lucy until they thoroughly understood what was to be done.  But how they enjoyed the old place in anticipation!  John smiled to see Harry from morning to night in deshabille as workmanlike as possible, with a foot rule or hammer constantly in his hand.

Yes, the London house was all in confusion, but Oh, what a happy confusion!  Lucy was so busy, she hardly knew what to do first, but her comfortable good-temper suffused the homeliest duties of life with the sacred glow of unselfish love, and John, watching her sunny cheerfulness, said to himself,

“Surely God smiled upon her soul before it came to this earth.”