"Well, John, I dare say it is nonsense," conceded Aunt Hester meekly: "but I confess I don't like dreams that come to you persistently night after night and always upon one and the same subject. Why should they come?--that's what I ask myself. Be sure, though, I make light of the matter to Ellin, and tell her her digestion is out of order. Over and over again, she says, they seem to have the clue to his hiding place, but they never succeed in finding him. And--and I am afraid, John, that the child, through this, has taken up the notion that she shall never see him again." Mr. Delorane, making some impatient remark about the absurdity of women in general, turned round and stood looking into the garden as before. Ellin's mind was getting unhinged with the long separation, she had begun to regard it as hopeless, and hence these dreams that Brook was "lost," he told himself, and with reason: and what was he to do? How long he stood thus in perfect silence, no sound to be heard but the everlasting jingling of the loose silver, Aunt Hester did not know; pretty near an hour she thought. She wished he would go; she felt very uncomfortable, as she always did feel when she vexed him--and here were the bills waiting to be added up. At length he turned sharply, with the air of one who has come to some decision, and returned to the office. "I suppose I shall have to do it myself," he remarked to Mr. St. George. "Do what, sir?" "Send for that young fellow back, and let them set up in some little homestead near me. I mean Brook." "Brook!" stammered St. George. "Here's Ellin beginning to fade and wither. It's all very well for her aunt to talk about the heat! _I_ know. She is pining after him, and I can't see her do it; so he must come home." Of all the queer shades that can be displayed by the human countenance, about the queerest appeared in that of Mr. St. George. It was not purple, it was not green, it was not yellow; it was a mixture of all three. He gazed at his chief and master as one gazes at a madman. "Brook can come into the office again," continued Mr. Delorane. "I don't like young men to be idle; leads 'em into temptation. We'll make him head clerk here, next to you, and give him a couple of hundred a-year. If--what's the matter?" For the strange look on his manager's face had caught the eye of Mr. Delorane. St. George drew three or four deep breaths. "Have you thought of Miss Delorane, sir--of her interests--in planning this?" he presently asked. "Why, that's what I do think of; nothing else. You may be sure I shouldn't think of it for the interest of Brook. All the same, I like the young man, and always shall. The child is moping herself into a bad way. Where shall I be if she should go into a decline like her mother? No, no; she shall marry and have proper interests around her."