"No," he said, taking her hand; "we have done our work there. We have laid the foundation of a new _regime_ of comparative health for our colonies, and the inhabitants of that dreadful place; other hands must carry on the work. I shudder now as I think of all that we have gone through, and wonder that we are still alive to begin some other task at home." There had been plenty of changes since they had left England, but Sir Denton Hayle, apparently not a day older, still paid his visits to the ward which bore his name; while Ralph Elthorne, vigorous in health, though helpless as a child, was at the station to welcome back his children, as he called them, to the old home, where Aunt Anne, grown more grey and placid, still kept house, and ignored all the past as she took her niece in her arms. Alison was no longer there. He had consoled himself a year after his brother's departure by marrying Saxa Lydon, instead of Dana, and residing at the Grange. For the younger sister preferred her outdoor life, spending half the year at her old home, the other half in travelling in so strong-minded a manner that Aunt Anne declared she was quite shocked. As for Saxa, when she decided to be Alison's wife, she endowed him with her masculine habits as well as her fortune, for a couple of sturdy little _facsimiles_ of her husband brought her to the way of thinking that an English wife should be motherly and wise, so that on Neil's return a wonderfully warm intimacy sprang up between the brothers' wives. There was another couple at the old home to welcome the sun-burned travellers, for Sir Cheltnam Burwood never entered Ralph Elthorne's doors again, but passed out of sight entirely, living, it was said, in Paris and Baden. So that when the vicar's son came to Hightoft as Captain Beck, his welcome was warm as he could wish, and his patience met with its reward. "That's the worst of it, my dear," said Ralph Elthorne, wrinkling up his brow, as he wheeled himself along the drive in the bright sunshine. "I don't want nursing, only helping about, and yet, now you are here, I feel sometimes as if I should like to be ill again, to wake up and see your dear face watching by my side. And so Sir Denton resigns his post at the hospital to Neil, eh?" "Yes; and we must go up at once." "Tut, tut, tut! you seem only just to have come. Here is Neil. I say, my dear boy: about this hospital. You don't want money?" "No, father; certainly not." "Then throw it up. Come and settle down here. I can't spare Cicely. I can't, indeed." "I'm afraid you must, sir," said Neil, laughing, "unless she says I am to go to work alone. Not a habit of hers, eh, my dear?" "Bah! You two are children. Anyone would think you had been married five days ago, instead of five years. Then look here: I shall give up the old place and come and live in town."