The old man died, his successor took possession of the cottage, and Mary found a welcome refuge in the rectory. Clement, who in the mean time had gone to a distant university, and who was unable to visit home twice a-year as formerly, was informed of all these changes by letters, which reached him but rarely, and were answered irregularly. Now and then his letters contained a note for Mary, in which he expressed himself condescendingly and jestingly, so unlike his old self, and addressed her as if she were still a child, so that his mother shook her head and said nothing of it before his father. Mary had these strange letters carefully read to her, begged them, and preserved them. After her father's death she received a short excited letter from him, in which he neither endeavoured to comfort her nor said a word showing a participation with her sorrow, only earnest entreaties to take care of her health, and to be quiet, and to let him know exactly how she was. This was in winter, and this letter the last to Mary. They expected a visit from him at Easter. He remained away, and wrote that he could not resist the opportunity of accompanying a celebrated professor on a botanical tour. His father was satisfied, and Mary succeeded at last in calming the mother's disappointment. He arrived unannounced at Whitsuntide on foot, untired by a long march since daybreak, with healthy cheeks, and he was a full-grown man. So he entered the quiet house, in which his mother was sitting alone, for it was the Saturday evening before the feast-day. With a cry of joy the startled woman clasped him round the neck. "So you," she cried, as she loosened herself from his arms, and took a step backwards to measure the long absent one with the full gaze of love, "So you have returned to us once again, unkind, forgetful one. You still remember the way to your father and mother. God be praised! I thought that you had made up your mind never to return till you were a professor, and then perhaps my poor old eyes might never have rejoiced in the sight of you again _here below_. But I will not scold you. You are faithful. You are the old Clement. And you will give me such a Whitsun feast as I have not had for many a day, to me and your father, and to us _all_. "Mother," he said, "how happy I am to be here once again! I could not bear at last to remain longer away. I do not know how it happened, I made no resolution beforehand. I felt that I must get home. One bright morning, instead of going to lecture, I walked through the town-gates, and strode away as if I fled from sin. I accomplished such journeys as I had never made before, good as I used to be on foot. Where is my father? where is Mary?"