When Horace appeared, wet as Susan had predicted he would be, and sulky as he always was, the sudden gleam of warmth in the familiar apartment penetrated even into his sullen heart. Its first result was the natural one of making him feel more unhappy; but in another moment, and with reflection, a change came upon Horace. He did not desire or care for the kindness of his uncle. _He_ was not a domestic creature!--he longed to escape from home, and was exceedingly indifferent as to what he should have there, if he could but attain that desirable end. And Colonel Sutherland appeared a very likely assistant to Horace--as, his deaf uncle not having heard him enter, he stood for a moment looking at him before he advanced. The young man, in his hard wisdom, perceived the simplicity of the old man who sat unconscious before him. As far as he could comprehend a spirit so different from his own, he read his nature in the Colonel's face, and took up his part accordingly with cleverness and dexterity. He advanced quickly to his uncle and held out his hand, Susan watching him with an unusual anxiety which she could not explain to herself. "Uncle!--I need not ask who it is--uncle, welcome!" cried Horace, with a heartiness unknown to him heretofore, and perhaps more reality in the expression than he himself could have thought possible. The Colonel rose with a little stumble of haste, putting his hand to his ear. For the moment he was perplexed, and thought it a stranger; but catching the sound of uncle, hailed his nephew with all the affectionate sincerity of his unsuspicious heart. He shook both his hands as Horace's hands had never been touched before; he looked in his face, too, as in Susan's, to trace the lineaments of their mother, and called him "my dear boy;" and shook his hands again with an effusion of satisfaction and kindness. For Horace, so far as features went, _was_ somewhat like his mother, and, with his smile and his smoothed-out brow, looked a very different person from the Horace of every-day use and wont. "But will he persevere?" said Susan to herself, with an ache of delight in her heart; and "How to keep it up?" said Horace within his own saturnine spirit. The uncle knew nothing of these secret questions--did not suspect for a moment that the young man who met him so joyfully had changed his manners for the occasion, and congratulated himself in his simple heart that both the children had kept their hearts and feelings warm in their solitude. The old man grew quite radiant and talkative. He who had intended to leave Marchmain directly, sat still, opening out his honest heart to the young people like a long absent father. He told them first and principally about his boys, their cousins, whom they must know--about the house he had got, which was exactly what he wanted, and where he only wished he could have Susan to be "mistress and mair!" as he broke out joyfully in his Scotch--about India, where almost all his