"Why, it’s Forrest!" and led the others, as a general uprising took place. "Yes, it’s Forrest," said the voice, and in the bright moonlight Jane looked up into the face whose outlines in these two years of absence had grown dim in her memory. It was the same face, but she thought it looked older and thinner, and she realised then and there that Forrest was not the same careless boy who had gone so lightly away to lead a soldier’s life. When the greetings were over and the company had settled down again on the turf under the maple, Jane found Forrest next to herself, and had her first little insight into his thoughts. "I feel like a stranger from a foreign country, I assure you," he was saying to her, presently, as the talk and laughter of the others made a bit of confidence possible. "And the strangest thing of all to me is the sight of my brother grinding away down there in the office, looking like the healthiest fellow in town. I can’t understand it; it took me off my feet!" "We have grown so used to the change," said Jane, smiling to herself, in the dim light, "that we don’t think about it any more." "You see," Forrest pursued, "I came home on the quiet--just wanting to see, you know, how they would take it. I thought if they really still cared, I should know it by the look on their faces----" "Oh, how could you think----" Jane began, eagerly. But he interrupted. "A fellow thinks a good many things when he ’s on the other side of the world, and I--well, I got to wanting to know some things so badly, I was n’t sorry when I had my fever. Yes--you did n’t know that, did you? Oh, I had it all right! And I wasn’t sorry when they sent me home with a lot of other convalescents. So I made for the office the minute I had seen my mother and the girls, for they told me that Murray was down there for good--a thing I had n’t known. Maybe they thought I ’d be jealous--and maybe I was--in a way, though I don’t want the job any more than I ever did. "Father gave me a good warm greeting--I ’ll say that. And Murray--well, when he got up and came toward me with his hand out, looking like the strongest kind of a young business man, I felt as if--But I can’t tell you about that now." There was a general movement of the younger people of the party, in response to a request from Ross, who was entertaining them with some new tricks, at which he was an adept. During the confusion Murray came and flung himself upon the grass beside Jane. "Take me into the conference, will you?" he said. "I’m envious of anybody my brother talks to, I ’m so glad to get him back." Under cover of the subdued light, Jane found her hand, which had been resting on the cool grass where she sat, taken into a warm, significant grasp, as familiar now as it was dear. She gave back a little answering pressure, without turning her head toward Murray, at whose close presence she had grown instantly happier.