At first he wrote but seldom, later on more regularly, but his letters—­I have seen many of them—­were the most uncommunicative documents that I ever saw in my life.  His wanderings took him to many strange places on the other side of the globe, but he never wrote of what he saw or did.  His family gleaned from them that his health was good, that the weather was such-and-such, and that he wished to have his love, duty, and respects conveyed to his various relatives.  In fact, the first positive bit of personal intelligence that they received from him was five years after his departure, when he wrote them from a Chinese port on letter-paper whose heading showed that he was a member of a commercial firm.  The letter itself made no mention of the fact.  As the years passed on, however, the letters came more regularly and they told less about the weather, and were slightly—­very slightly—­more expressive of a kind regard for his relatives.  But at the best they were cramped by the formality of his day and generation, and we of to-day would have called them cold and perfunctory.

But the practical assurances that he gave of his undiminished—­ nay, his steadily increasing—­affection for the people at home, were of a most satisfying character, for they were convincing proof not only of his love but of his material prosperity.  Almost from his first time of writing he began to send gifts to all the members of the family.  At first these were mere trifles, little curios of travel such as he was able to purchase out of a seaman’s scanty wages; but as the years went on they grew richer and richer, till the munificence of the runaway son became the pride of the whole family.

The old house that had been in the suburbs of Boston was fairly in the heart of the city when I first made its acquaintance, and one of the famous houses of the town.  And it was no wonder it was famous, for such a collection of Oriental furniture, bric-a-brac, and objects of art never was seen outside of a museum.  There were ebony cabinets, book-cases, tables, and couches wonderfully carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.  There were beautiful things in bronze and jade and ivory.  There were all sorts of strange rugs and curtains and portieres.  As to the china-ware and the vases, no house was ever so stocked; and as for such trifles as shawls and fans and silk handkerchiefs, why such things were sent not singly but by dozens.

No one could forget his first entrance into that house.  The great drawing-room was darkened by heavy curtains, and at first you had only a dim vision of the strange and graceful shapes of its curious furnishing.  But you could not but be instantly conscious of the delicate perfume that pervaded the apartment, and, for the matter of that, the whole house.  It was a combination of all the delightful Eastern smells—­not sandalwood only, nor teak, nor couscous, but all these odors and a hundred others blent in one.  Yet it was not heavy nor overpowering, but delightfully