It was toward the end of April that I received a telegram signed by my sister’s name: “Mother seriously ill. Wants to see you. Come at once.” In spite of my alarm at this summons I saw the opportunity of putting up a good front before my relatives. Taking Lovey with me as valet, and stopping at the best hotel, I presented the appearance of a successful man. Though anxiety on my mother’s account made my return a matter of secondary interest, I could see the surprise and relief my apparent prosperity created. My brothers had been expecting one of whom they would have to be ashamed. Furthermore, they had not been too confident as to my attitude with regard to my father’s will. Looking for me to contest it, they had suspected that behind my acquiescence lay a ruse. When they saw that there was none, that I made no complaint, that I seemed to have plenty of money, that I traveled with a servant, that I had the air of a man of means—a curious note of wonder and respect stole into their manner toward me. I know that in private they were saying to each other that they couldn’t make me out; and I gave them no help in doing so. I gave them no help during all the month I remained in Montreal. I arranged with Coningsby to take that time, and my little stock of savings was sufficient to finance me. Though I was once more putting up a bluff, it was a bluff that I felt to be justified; and in the end it found its justification. I have no intention of giving you the details of those four weeks of watching beside a bed where the end was apparent from the first. Now that I look back upon them, I can see that they were not without their element of happiness, since to my mother at least it was happiness to know that I was beside her. The joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth was on her face from the day I appeared, and never left it up to that moment when we took our last look at her dear smiling features. When the lawyer came to read us her will I found, to my amazement, that she had left me everything she possessed. It was then that I reaped that which I had sown at Andy Christian’s suggestion. Since with a good grace I had accepted my father’s will, the rest of the family could hardly do otherwise with regard to my mother’s. She left a note saying that, had my father lived a few months longer, he would have seen that I had re-established myself sufficiently to be allowed to share equally with the rest of the family in what he had to leave; but, as it was too late for that, she was endeavoring to right the seeming injustice—which he had not meant as an injustice—as far as lay in her power. These words from her pen being much more emphatic than any I could remember from her lips, my brothers and sisters, whatever they felt inwardly, could only give their assent to them.