For answer she tore herself away, and ran through the hall to the broad porch in front.

“Our barrister is come, mother,” we heard her exclaiming, “and whom do you think he has brought?”

“Is it Richard?” asked the gentler voice, more hastily than usual.

I stepped out on the porch, where the invalid sat in her armchair.  She was smiling with joy, too, and she held out her wasted hands and drew me toward her, kissing me on both cheeks.

“I thank God for His goodness,” said she.

“And the boy has come to stay, mother,” said her husband, as he stooped over her.

“To stay!” cries Patty.

“Gordon’s Pride is henceforth his home,” replied the barrister.  “And now I can return in peace to my musty law, and know that my plantation will be well looked after.”

Patty gasped.

“Oh, I am so glad!” said she, “I could almost rejoice that his uncle cheated him out of his property.  He is to be factor of Gordon’s Pride?”

“He is to be master of Gordon’s Pride, my dear,” says her father, smiling and tilting her chin; “we shall have no such persons as factors here.”

At that the tears forced themselves into my own eyes.  I turned away, and then I perceived for the first time the tall form of my old friend, Percy Singleton.

“May I, too, bid you welcome, Richard,” said he, in his manly way; “and rejoice that I have got such a neighbour?”

“Thank you, Percy,” I answered.  I was not in a state to say much more.

“And now,” exclaims Patty, “what a dinner we shall have in the prodigal’s honour!  I shall make you all some of the Naples biscuit Mrs. Brice told me of.”

She flew into the house, and presently we heard her clear voice singing in the kitchen.

CHAPTER XLVI

GORDON’S PRIDE

The years of a man’s life that count the most are often those which may be passed quickest in the story of it.  And so I may hurry over the first years I spent as Mr. Swain’s factor at Gordon’s Pride.  The task that came to my hand was heaven-sent.

That manor-house, I am sure, was the tidiest in all Maryland, thanks to Patty’s New England blood.  She was astir with the birds of a morning, and near the last to retire at night, and happy as the days were long.  She was ever up to her elbows in some dish, and her butter and her biscuits were the best in the province.  Little she cared to work samplers, or peacocks in pretty wools, tho’ in some way she found the time to learn the spinet.  As the troubles with the mother country thickened, she took to a foot-wheel, and often in the crisp autumn evenings I would hear the bumping of it as I walked to the house, and turn the knob to come upon her spinning by the twilight.  She would have no English-made linen in that household.  “If mine scratch your back, Richard,” she would say, “you must grin and bear, and console yourself with your virtue.”  It was I saw to the flax, and learned from Ivie Rawlinson (who had come to us from Carvel Hall) the best manner to ripple and break and swingle it.  And Mr. Swain, in imitation of the high example set by Mr. Bordley, had buildings put up for wheels and the looms, and in due time kept his own sheep.