“If you do not stop crying, I shall feel tempted to doubt you.  Tears are so unusual in your eyes that I shall be disposed to regard your welcome as equivocal.”

He kissed her on cheek and lips, and added: 

“Regina, can’t you contrive to say you are a little glad to see me?”

There was no reply, and, turning to look for her, he found she had vanished.

“Queer little thing, she has gone without a word, though she insisted on dressing her silver cup with those flowers, which she thought would suggest to you her gratitude for your numerous little acts of kindness.  Have you seen your uncle?”

“Yes, mother, I stopped a few moments at the church, where he is engaged with one of the committee.  Uncle Peyton is not looking well.  Has he been sick?”

“He has suffered a good deal with his throat since you left us, and now and then I notice he coughs.  He is overworked, and now that you can fill his pulpit he will have an opportunity to rest.  Oh, my son! in every respect your visit is a blessing.”

Leaning her head on his breast, she looked up with proud and almost adoring tenderness, and, drawing his face down to hers, held it close, kissing him with that intense clinging fervour which only mother-love kindles.

“Does my little mother know that she is spoiling her boy by inches; making a nursery darling, instead of a hardy soldier of him?  You are weaving silken bonds to fasten me more securely here, when you ought rather to aid me in snapping the fetters of affection, habit, and association.  Come, be so good as to brush the dust out of my hair, while you tell me everything about everybody, which you have failed to write during these long months of absence.”

For some time they talked of family matters, of occurrences in V——­, of some invidious and unkind remarks, some caustic personal criticisms upon the pastor’s household affairs, which had emanated from Mrs. Prudence Potter, a widowed member of the congregation, who had once rashly dreamed of presiding over the clerical hearth as Mrs. Peyton Hargrove, and having failed to possess her kingdom had become a merciless spy upon all that happened in the forbidden realm.

“Poor Mrs. Prue! what a warfare exists between her name and her character.  She should petition the legislature to allow her to be called—­Mrs. Echidna!  My son, I think modern civilization will remain incomplete, will not perform its mission, until it relieves society from the depredations of these scorpions, by colonizing them where they will expend their poison without dangerous results.  If sting they must, let it be among themselves.  If I were lunatic enough to desire to vote, I should spend my franchise in favour of a ’Gossip Reservation’—­somewhere close to the Great Western Desert, to which the disappointed widows, spiteful old maids, and snarling dyspeptic bachelors of this much-suffering generation should be relegated for domiciliation and reform.  Freedom