“Timothy, go and find the barber, and take him to my room, and tell him to wait there until he is called. There is a gentleman there who will require his services.” “Yes, sir. Did you hear, sir, about the robber what broke inter de house dis morning and drawed a pistol on Marse Commodore in de little green study, and scared one of de ladies into fainty fits, and jumped clear through de glass windy, and made off before any one could catch him?” “Oh! yes, I heard all about him,” replied the young gentleman, smiling to himself to see how the poor tramp’s adventure had grown in the telling. “We libs in awful times, marster,” added the man, who seemed inclined to linger. “We do, indeed. But now run and find the barber. Yet, stay a moment. Where is the commodore?” “He been tending to de fainty lady ’til jes’ dis minute, when he went to de liberary to ’ceive de mail-bag, which de mail-boy have jes’ fotched in.” “Very well. I shall find him there. Now run on your errand.” The boy obeyed, but the lieutenant stood still, ruminating how he could ever with safety break to the long bereaved old father the news of his son’s return, and praying that it might be given him in that hour what to speak. “I have it!” he said to himself at length. “I have it! The mail has just come in with the Washington and Richmond papers! I will go in and take up one and offer to read it to him. I will then pretend to read the heading of an article: ‘Remarkable Return to Life.’ ‘Reappearance of a young man long supposed to have been lost at sea.’ “And then I’ll read a rigmarole about somebody, or rather nobody, that shall resemble Lonny’s arrival, and so prepare the old man’s mind to hear the fact, by presenting the possibility of such a thing. Bah! I know it will throw him in a fit, all the same,” concluded the poor lieutenant as he opened the library door and went in. He found the old commodore seated in his big arm-chair at the table, holding an open letter in his shaking hand and staring at it with starting eyes. The young man saw, as by a flash of lightning, what had occurred. The commodore held in his hand the long-delayed letter from Marseilles, referred to by poor Lonny, announcing his existence and intended return. No need of breaking news here. “Ronald! For Heaven’s sake, look at this!” exclaimed Commodore Bruce as soon as he saw his nephew. The lieutenant, instead of immediately complying with his uncle’s request, went to the buffet, poured out a glass of cognac, and took it to the old man, who received it with a trembling hand and drank it at a draught. “Ronald! Ronald! You are shocked to see me in this state; but if you knew the contents of this letter you would wonder you had not found me stone dead in my chair, struck by a lightning flash of joy! Ronald! You may marry the girl you love now! You may do anything in the world you like to make yourself happy! I would all the world were as happy as I am now! There! Read the letter. I—read it!”