"Oh, Tod! will he get over it?" "Yes. Please God." "Is he injured?" "No, no. Get out of my way, Johnny. Go to the mother now, if you like. Tell her he has only been shut up in the barn and I'm coming in with him. The dirt's nothing: it was on him before." Just as meek and gentle she stood as ever, the tears rolling down her face, and a quiet joy in it. Tod brought him in, laying him across her knee as she sat on the sofa. "There," he said. "He'll be all right when he has been washed and had something to eat." "God bless you, Joseph!" she whispered. Tod could say no more. He bent to kiss Hugh; lifted his face, and kissed the mother. And then he went rushing out with a burst of emotion. OUR VISIT. I. We went down from Oxford together, I and Tod and William Whitney; accompanying Miss Deveen and Helen and Anna Whitney, who had been there for a few days. Miss Deveen's carriage was waiting at the Paddington Station; they got into it with Tod, and William and I followed in a cab with the luggage. Miss Deveen had invited us all to stay with her. Miss Cattledon, the companion, with her tall, thin figure, her pinched-in waist and her creaking stays, stood ready to receive us when we reached the house. Miss Deveen held out her hand. "How have you been, Jemima? Taking care of yourself, I hope?" "Quite well, thank you, Miss Deveen; and very glad to see you at home again," returned Cattledon. "This is my niece, Janet Carey." A slight, small girl, with smooth brown hair and a quiet face that looked as if it had just come out of some wasting illness, was hiding herself behind Cattledon. Miss Deveen said a few pleasant words of welcome, and took her hand. The girl looked as shy and frightened as though we had all been a pack of gorillas. "Thank you, ma'am; you are very kind," she said in a tremble; and her voice, I noticed, was low and pleasant. I like nice voices, whether in man or woman. "It wants but half-an-hour to dinner-time," said Miss Deveen, untying the strings of her bonnet. "Miss Cattledon, will you show these young friends of ours the rooms you have appropriated to them." My room and Tod's--two beds in it--was on the second floor; Helen and Anna had the best company room below, near Miss Deveen's; Bill had a little one lower still, half-way up the first flight of stairs. Miss Cattledon's room, we found out, was next to ours, and her niece slept with her. Tod threw himself full length on his counterpane--tired out, he said. Certain matters had not gone very smoothly for him at Oxford, and the smart remained. "You'll be late, Tod," I said when I was ready. "Plenty of time, Johnny. I don't suppose I shall keep dinner waiting." Miss Deveen stood at the door of the blue room when I went down: that pretty sitting-room, exclusively hers, that I remembered so well. She had on a purple silk gown, with studs of pale yellow topaz in its white lace front, studs every whit as beautiful as the emeralds made free with by Sophie Chalk.