She poured out a multitude of questions,—Whence did he come? When did he arrive? Was he here for good, to follow his own business again? And had her father returned also? He put aside all her questions, desiring only, for the present, that she would help him to enter the house when uncle Christopher was gone to bed. Uncle Christopher would be back in five minutes, and there was no time to lose in settling how—— “But you are not going away before you have spoken to me, or given one look that I dare to rest upon. Why, Cuddie——” “Well, Effie, I am not going to meet uncle Christopher; I can tell you that. There he lay, muttering his cant, the night I was carried off, and did not so much as put a foot out of bed to help me. He may talk of how many souls he has saved. He has lost one, I can tell him; and if I ever meet him,—and it will be only by chance,—I shall tell him——” “There he is!” cried Effie, hearing the rattle of the chain by which the boat was fastened. Cuddie instantly let himself out by the back door, intimating that he should return to be admitted, as soon as his uncle could be supposed asleep. This event was not long in happening, as Effie was not, this evening, very lavish of remarks which might tempt him to linger over his pipe and glass. When Cuddie re-entered from the garden, his first act was to desire his sister to fasten the door at the foot of the stairs, and hang up blinds against both windows, he standing in the shadow till this was done. Effie timidly objected to blinding the front window which looked down upon the ferry; it was not yet too late for the possibility of passengers. This seemed to serve as a new reason; and she was obliged to hang up her shawl. “If you want to know the reason,” whispered her brother,—“I am a deserter. Hush! No noise! or you will be the death of me, as Adam was near being this morning.” “Won’t you sit down?” said Effie,—as she might have spoken to an intruder from Bedlam. “Effie, you always used to say what you felt, and all that you felt. Are you changed too? Come; tell me what you are thinking.” “I think I am in a dream, and do not know whether you be Cuddie, or a fancy of my own. O, Cuddie, I have always loved you next to Walter, and looked upon you as the pride and hope of the family; and as often as I have started from sleep, these four years past, it has been with dreaming over again your being taken at dead of night, and especially your slipping down the cable. The worst moments I have had from the time you rowed away from this ferry, that bright evening, are those between sleeping and waking, when I saw you cold and altered before me, and I could not by any means make you smile. I never,—no I never believed this last would come true. And now,—and now,” she uttered between her sobs, “you know what I am thinking about.”