At this intelligence every feature of Mrs. Lawson's face brightened with powerful interest. She inquired where Mr. Lawson stopped, and was informed that he had arrived at the best hotel in town about three days previously, and that every one talked of the large fortune he had made abroad, as he seemed to make no secret of the fact. A burning eagerness to obtain possession of that money entered Mrs. Lawson's soul, and she thought every second of time drawn out to the painful duration of a long hour, while Mrs. Thompson slowly moved her ample skirts of satin across the drawing-room, and took her departure. Mrs. Lawson dispatched a messenger immediately for her husband. Henry Lawson came in, and listened with surprise to the intelligence of his father's return. He was taking up his hat to proceed to the hotel in quest of him, when a carriage drove to the door. Mrs. Lawson's heart palpitated with eagerness--if it should be her husband's father in his own carriage--how delightful!--that horrible Mrs. Thompson had not a carriage of her own yet, though she was always talking of it. They, Mrs. Lawson and her husband, had just been about setting up a carriage when business failed with them. She ran briskly down the stairs--for long years she had not flown with such alertness--rapid visions of gold, of splendor, and triumph seemed to bear her along, as if she had not been a being of earth. She was not disappointed, for there, at the open door, stood John Lawson. He was enveloped in a cloak of fur, the costliness of which told Mrs. Lawson that it was the purchase of wealth; a servant in plain livery supported him, for he seemed a complete invalid. Mrs. Lawson threw her arms around his neck, and embraced him with a warmth and eagerness which brought a cold and bitter smile over the white, thin lips of John Lawson. He replied briefly to the welcomings he had received. He threw aside his cloak, and exhibited the figure of an exceedingly emaciated and feeble old man, who had all the appearance of ninety years, though he was little more than sixty; his face was worn and fleshless to a painful degree; his hair was of the whitest shade of great age, but his eyes had grown much more serene in their expression than in his earlier days, notwithstanding a cast of suffering which his whole countenance exhibited. He was plainly, but most carefully and respectably dressed; a diamond ring of great value was on one of his fingers; the luster of the diamonds caught Mrs. Lawson's glance on her first inspection of his person, and her heart danced with rapture--Mrs. Thompson had no such ring, with all her boasting of all her finery. "I have come to see my child before I die," said the old man, gazing on his son with earnest eyes; "you broke the ties of nature between us on your part, when, ten years ago, you refused your father a few shillings from your abundance, but--"