And while she was yet speaking there swept round the house a wild burst of storm, in the midst of which were faintly discerned the sound of a horse's feet. They all cried out--“He is here!” A minute more and he was in the room--drenched through--flushed with riding against wind and rain. But it was himself, his own self, and his wife saw him. When those who are much thought of return from absence, for the first minute they almost always seem unlike the image in our hearts.--It was not thus that Agatha had remembered her husband. Not thus--abrupt, agitated: anything but the calm and grave Nathanael. He looked eagerly round the room--all rose: but Miss Valery was the first to take his hand. “Thanks, Anne, I knew you would be with them. Is he”-- “Just the same--no change.” The young man breathed hard. “Are you all here?” He took his three sisters and kissed them one after the other, silently, brotherly--Anne likewise. There was one left out--his wife, who had hidden behind the rest. But soon she heard her name. “Is Agatha with you?” She approached. Her husband took her hand--paused a moment--and then touched her cheek with his lips, as he had done to his sisters. He did not look at her or speak--it seemed as if he were not able. They drew round Nathanael, nearly all weeping. There was, as is natural at such times, an unusual outburst of family tenderness. And, as was natural also, no one seemed to think of the young wife--the stranger in the circle. Agatha slid away from the group and disappeared. Shortly after, she had taken her usual place in the sickroom. It had struck her that the old man ought to be prepared for his son's coming, so she had at once proceeded to his bedside. But it was useless--he was sleeping. She sat down noiselessly in her old seat, and watched, as she had done for many an hour in this long day, the smiling portrait at the foot of the bed--her husband's mother, whom he never saw. While she sat, footsteps entered the room. Agatha turned quickly round to motion the intruder to silence, and perceived that it was Nathanael. She fancied--nay, was sure--that he started when he saw her. Still, he came forward. She rose, and would have given him her seat, but he put his hand on her shoulder, and gently pressed her down again. The old servant who watched near her went respectfully to the further end of the room. It was a solemn scene; the dim light--the total silence, broken only by the feeble breathing of the old man, who lay passive as death, without death's sanctity of calm. Over all, that gay youthful portrait which the lamp-light, excluded from the bed, kindled into wonderfully vivid life--far more like life than the sleeper below.