Ann Edwards and Abel sat side by side on the sofa in the parlor, and the visitors came and greeted them, with a curious manner, which had in it not so much of the joy of greeting, as awe and a solemn perplexity.  Always, after shaking hands with the united couple, they whispered furtively to one another that Abel Edwards was much changed, they should scarcely have known him.  Yet, with their simple understandings, they could not have defined the change, which they recognized plainly enough, for it lay not so much in form and feature as in character.  Abel Edwards’s hair was white, he was somewhat fuller in his face, but otherwise he was little altered, so far as mere physical characteristics went.  The change in him was subtler.  Jerome had noticed it the night before, and it was evidently a permanent condition.  Abel Edwards, from being a reserved man, with the self-containment of one who is buffeted by unfair odds of fate, yet will not stoop to vain appeals, but holds always to the front his face of dumb dissent and purpose, was become a garrulous and happy child.  People hinted that Abel Edwards’s mind was affected, but it was a question whether that was the case, or whether it was the simple result of his abandonment, fourteen years before, of the reins which had held an original nature in check.  He might possibly have merely, when renouncing his toil over the up-grade of life, slipped back to his first estate, and thus have experienced in one sense no change at all.

Many of Abel’s old friends and neighbors were not fully convinced of the desirability of his reappearance.  When a man has been out of his foothold in the crowd for fourteen years, he cannot regain it without undue jostling of people’s shoulders, and prejudices even.  The resurrection of the dead might have, if the truth were told, uncomfortable and perplexing features for their nearest and dearest, and Abel Edwards had been practically dead and buried.

“They were gettin’ along real well before he come; of course, they’re glad to see him, but I dun’no’ whether they’ll get along as well with him or not,” proclaimed Mrs. Green of Westbrook, with the very aggressiveness of frankness, and many looked assent.

Abel’s wife had no question in her inmost heart of its utter blessedness at his return, but her grief at his loss had never healed.  For that resolute feminine soul, which had fought on in spite of it, her husband had died anew every morning of those fourteen years when she awoke to consciousness of life; but it was different with his children.  For both of them the old wounds had closed; it was now like tearing them asunder, for it is often necessary to revive an old pain to fully appreciate a present joy.  Had Jerome and Elmira been older at the time of their father’s disappearance, it would have been otherwise, but as it was, their old love for him had been obliterated, not merely by time and absence, but growth.  It was practically impossible, though they would not have owned it to themselves, for them to love their father, when he first returned, as they had used.  They were painfully anxious to be utterly faithful, and had an odd sort of tender but imaginative pity towards him, but they could grasp no more.  Both of them hesitated when they said father; every time they returned home and found him there it was with a sensation of surprise.