“Don’t you know him?  Don’t you know your own father?  Look at him.”  Ann threw back her head and pointed at the old worn face on her breast.

Jerome stared at it.  “Where—­did he come—­from?” he panted.

“I don’t know.  He’s come.  Oh, Abel, Abel, you’ve come home!”

“Give me some of that brandy, quick,” Jerome called to Elmira, who stood trembling, holding the bottle and glass.  He poured out some brandy, and, with a teaspoon, fed the old man, a few drops at a time.  Presently he raised his head feebly, but it sank back.  He tried to speak.  “Don’t try to talk,” said Jerome; “wait till you’re rested.  Mother, let him alone now; sit down there.  Elmira, you must try and help me a little.”

“If you’ve got to be helped, I’ll help,” cried Ann, fiercely.

With that his mother, who had not walked since he could remember, ran into the bedroom, and began spreading the sheets smooth and shaking the pillows.

The old man was a light-weight.  Jerome almost carried him into the bedroom, and laid him on the bed.  He fed him with more brandy, and put hot-water bottles around him.  Presently he breathed evenly in a sweet sleep.  Ann sat by his side, holding his hand, and would not stir, though Jerome besought her to go up-stairs to Elmira’s room.

“I guess I don’t leave him to stray away again,” said she.

Out in the kitchen, Elmira pressed close to Jerome.  “Is it,” she whispered in his ear—­“is it father?”

Jerome nodded.

“How do you know?”

“I remember.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, he’s grown old, but I remember.”

“Where—­did he—­come from?”

“I don’t know.  We must wait till he wakes up.”

The brother and sister huddled close together over the fire, and waited.  Elmira held Jerome’s hand fast in her little cold one.

“What’s in that little tin trunk?”

“Hush; I don’t know.”

“Jerome, mother walked!”

“Hush; I saw her.”

It was an hour before they heard a sound from the bedroom.  Then Ann’s voice rang out clearly, and another, husky and feeble, sounded in response.  Jerome and Elmira went into the room, and stood beside the bed.

“Here’s the children, Abel,” said Ann.

The face on the pillow looked stranger than before to Jerome.  When half unconscious it had worn a certain stern restraint, which coincided with his old memories; now it was full of an innocent pleasantness, like a child’s, which puzzled him.  The old man began talking eagerly too, and Jerome remembered his father as very slow-spoken, though it might have been the slowness of self-control, not temperament.

“How they’ve grown!” he said, looking at his children and then at Ann.  “That’s Jerome, and that’s Elmira.  How I’ve lotted on this day.”  He held out a feeble hand; Elmira took it, timidly, then leaned over and kissed him.  Jerome took it then, and it seemed to him like a hand from the grave.  His doubt passed; he knew that this man was his father.