"You have not been missed," said the Doctor, entering into my feeling, though not quite sympathizing with it. "You have not been missed, and you are not recognized. The birds are not jubilant because you have come back. The wood was as resonant before your key turned in the lock." He stopped and looked about him at the grand old oaks. "The man who grew up under these trees, and calls them his, may well long for them, but they will wait very patiently for his return. We could not spare trees and birds, but they can do without us well enough. Strange the place of man on his earth! Everything is necessary to him, and he is necessary to nothing." Shaler had left the key of his house with me. There could be no indiscretion in introducing such guests into it. We went first into the dining-room. Everything was as it used to be, except that the family portraits had been taken away. The cords to which they had been attached still hung from the hooks, ready to receive them again. The large oval table kept its place in the middle of the room. What pleasant hours I had had in that room, at that table! Colonel Shaler was our first friend in this part of the world. My father and he were distantly related, and had had a week's acquaintance at the house of a common friend when my father was a very young man and the Colonel a middle-aged one. On the third day after our arrival here, my father somewhat nervously put into my hand a note which had taken some time to write, and asked me to find the way with it to Colonel Shaler's plantation, which lay somewhere within ten miles of us in a southeasterly direction. As I was to go on horseback, I liked the adventure very much, and undertook it heartily. I was first made conscious that it had a shady side, when I found myself in the hall of the great, strange house, waiting to be ushered into the presence of its master. "Hallo!" exclaimed a voice beside and far above me, as I stood with eyes fixed on the ground, expecting that serious moment of entrance. "You are Ned Colvil's son!" And my hand was lost in a capacious clasp, well proportioned to the heart it spoke for. I looked up to see a massive head, shaggy with crisp curls of grizzled hair, and to meet quick, bright blue eyes, that told of an active spirit animating the heavy frame. The Colonel did not expect me to speak. "We are to be neighbors! Good news! Your horse cannot go back at once, and I cannot wait. You must take another for to-day, and we will send yours home to you to-morrow." Colonel Shaler's stout gray was soon led round, and presently followed, for me, a light-made, graceful black, the prettiest horse I had ever yet mounted. As soon as I saw it, I knew that it must be his son's, and visions of friendship already floated before me. "One of Charles's," said the Colonel; "he is out on the other. I wish he was here to go with us, but we cannot wait."