Samuel Wright looked heavily over at Dr. Lavendar. "Well," said the old minister, "he gave Sam the money to go away. I suppose that's on his mind, for one thing. He may think something went wrong, you know." "Oh," broke in the mother, beginning to cry, "he Was so glad to get home; he said to me the night he got back, 'Mother, I just had to come home to you and father; I couldn't stay away any longer.' I'm sure he couldn't have said anything more loving, could he? And he kissed me. You know he wasn't one to kiss much. Yes; he couldn't bear to be away from us. He said so." "Go and see him, Samuel," urged Dr. Lavendar. "You, too, have lost a son, so you know now how he has felt for thirty-two years. His was a loss for which he knows he was to blame. It is a cruel knowledge, Sam?" "It is," said the senior warden. "It is." "Then go and comfort him." Samuel went. A great experience had wiped the slate so clean of all the years of multiplications and additions of resentment and mortification, that the thought of facing his father did not stir his dull indifference to the whole dreary matter. When Simmons saw him coming up the garden path, he said under his breath, "Bless the Lawd!" Then, mindful of hospitality, offered whiskey. "Certainly not," said Samuel Wright; and the old habit of being displeased made his voice as pompous as if he cared--one way or the other. "Can you make him understand that I'm here, Simmons? Of course, I won't go up-stairs unless he wants to see me." "He'll want to see you, suh, he'll want to see you," said Simmons. "He's right smart to-day. He kin use his left hand. He dun shuck that fist at me this mawnin'. Oh, laws, yes, he'll want to see you." "Go and ask him." Simmons went, and came back triumphantly. "I tole him. He didn't say nothin'. So it's all right." The visitor went ponderously up-stairs. On the first landing he caught his breath, and stood still. Directly opposite him, across the window of the upper hall was a horsehair-covered sofa, with great, shiny, slippery mahogany ends. Samuel Wright put his hand up to his throat as if he were smothering.... He used to lie on that sofa on hot afternoons and study his declensions. It had no springs; he felt the hardness of it in his bones, now, and the scratch of the horsehair on his cheek. Instantly words, forgotten for a generation, leaped up: Stella Stellae Stellae Stellam--