The aspect of the two as they stood side by side was so forbidding, that the child, faint with fatigue and disappointment, had hard work to repress his tears. Nor was the uneasiness confined to him only, for the butler's voice, when he raised it to greet his kinsfolk, sounded unnatural. His words tumbled over one another, and he alighted with a fussiness which betrayed itself. On the other side the most absolute composure existed; so that presently the man's fulsome words died on his lips. "Why, brother," he stammered, with something of a whine, "you are glad to see me?" "It may be, and again it may not be," the other answered grimly. "How so?" Gridley asked, changing countenance. "Have you turned your back on the flesh-pots for good?" was the severe response. "Have you come out of Egypt and away from its abominations? For I will have no malignants here, nor those who eat their bread and grow fat on their vices? If you have left the tents of Kedar, then you are welcome here. But if not, pass on." "I have left Pattenhall, if that is what you mean," the younger brother answered sullenly. "And its service?" "Ay, and its service." "Who is the lad you have with you?" Simon Gridley asked keenly. "He is a Patten," the butler answered reluctantly; "but he has neither house nor land, nor more in the world than the clothes he stands up in." The answer took both the man and the woman by surprise. They stood gazing as with one accord at the boy, who, with his lips trembling, changed feet and shifted his eyes from one stern face to another. "I have heard something of that," the elder Gridley said, with a stern smile. "He comes of a bad brood." "Nevertheless, you will not refuse him shelter," his brother answered. "He is a child, and I have nowhere else to take him." "Why take him at all?" the Puritan snarled fiercely. "What have you to do with the children of transgression? Have you not sins enough of your own to answer for?" The butler did not reply, and for a moment the boy's fate seemed to hang in the balance. Then the woman spoke. "Bring him in," she said harshly and suddenly. "It may be that he is a brand snatched from the burning."