“Yes, Emily, it is even so.  After a long, long absence, I have come back to my old home, wiser and better, I trust, than when I went away.”

It was some time before Emily looked up or replied; but she did not make a motion to withdraw the hand which Andrew held with no slight pressure.

“How often, Emily,” continued Andrew, seeing that she remained silent, “have I thought of the sweet hours we spent together as children—­hours, too often, of stolen delight.  Their remembrance has, many a time, saved me from evil when strongly tempted.  But for that, and the memory of my mother, I should long since have become a castaway on the ocean of life.”

The voice of Andrew became tremulous as he uttered the last sentence.  It was then that Emily raised her eyes from the floor, gently withdrawing her hand at the same time, and fixed them upon his face.  His words had sent her thoughts back to the old time when they were children together, and when, to be within him, was one of her highest pleasures; and, not only that, his words and tones had reached her heart, and awakened therein an echo.

“It is a long time since you went away,” said Emily.  “A very long time.”

“Yes; it is a long time.  But, the weary slow-passing years are ended, and I am back again among early scenes and old friends, and back, I trust, to remain.”

“How is your mother?” inquired Emily, after a slight pause.

“I found her much changed—­older by twice the number of years that have elapsed since I went away.”

But all that passed between Andrew Howland and Emily Winters in the hour they spent together at this first meeting, after so long an absence, we cannot write.  For a time, their intercourse was marked by a reserve and embarrassment on the part of Emily; but this insensibly wore off, and, ere the young man went away, their hearts, if not their lips, had spoken to each other almost as freely as in the days of childhood.

Not many months elapsed ere the tender regard that was spontaneously awakened in their bosoms when children, and which had never ceased to exist, led them into a true marriage union, to which no one raised even a whisper of opposition.  Almost at the very time that Andrew was holding his first interview with Emily, Mr. Winters was listening to a brief account of his return, with some of the pleasing incidents immediately attendant thereon.  In a meeting with the young man shortly afterward, he was (sic) prepossesed in his favor, and when he saw that he was disposed to renew the old intimate relations with Emily, he did not in the least object.

Thus, after a lapse of over twenty-five years, two families, each possessed of substantial virtues, and with social qualities forming a plane for reciprocal good feeling, but which had been forced apart by the narrow prejudice and iron will of Mr. Howland, came together in a marriage of two of its members.  Alas! how much of wrong and suffering appertained to that long period during which they were thus held apart!  How many scars from heart-wounds were left; and these not always painless!