Harry’s mother got all the blame with reason, since the curate had grown so feeble in mind, as well as in body, that he was only able to take in what his wife told him; and if she had assured him that Harry had never been away at all, but had been all this while in the cricket-ground, or off with his gun and Flora, he would have called for his hat and stick, and claimed her arm, to go out and chide the boy for his thoughtless delay. The elder sons and daughters of the family, middle-aged people, with growing-up children of their own, put themselves about to come from various distances to condole and remonstrate gently with their mother, until poor Mrs. Bloomfield’s forlorn hope was at its last tremulous gasp. Even Flora threatened to fail her, for the old dog began, not so much to sit listening, as to crouch down, it seemed in despair. But one April day, when the country air was full of the scent of blossoming furze bushes and the songs of birds, awakening to the knowledge that summer was at hand, Flora pricked her ears, started up, and pawed eagerly at the door. “There! I told you; there is Harry at last,” cried a shrill quavering voice, and then Mrs. Bloomfield fell back in a dead faint; for, even as she had spoken, she had recognised that it was only the postman who was advancing to give his accustomed rap, and her strained nerves and breaking heart could not stand the bitter disappointment. “This delusion will kill my mother,” said one of the daughters, hurrying to attend to Mrs. Bloomfield, while one of the sons received the letters. “That wretched dog of poor Harry’s must be taken away from the place.” “Yes, Conty,” said her brother hastily; “but this is very like—it cannot be—good Heavens! it is Harry’s handwriting, and see”—pointing to the end of a letter he had torn open—“here is his signature. Could the brute have scented it a hundred yards off?” “Oh! never mind, if dear Harry be only alive and well. Find out all about it, that we may tell mamma the first thing after she knows what we are saying. There, the red is coming into her poor lips again; but I am sure nothing will bring her back like such good news. No, Jem, I have no fear for the shock; it is sorrow and not joy which drains the blood from the heart; and the knowledge that she and Flora have been proved right, and all the rest of us wrong, will help to steady her. Don’t you know so much of human nature?” demanded the half-laughing, half-crying, middle-aged daughter. Harry’s story was one not altogether strange to men’s experience, and which occurs once and again in a generation, but when it happens is always regarded as a marvel with the attributes of a romance.