When the gig arrived with the two travellers, Horace hastened to the door to meet them with a novel amiability. He lifted Susan down, and gathered her parcels together with a good-nature that astounded her. They were all equally pleased, it seemed, as they went in together and met Mrs. Gilsland, curtseying and cordial, ready--half from goodwill and half from curiosity--to attend Susan herself, and help her to take off her bonnet. Then Susan carried a passport to respect wherever she went in that wonderful shawl; the landlady touched it with reverential ignorance, knowing only that it was "Indae," and ready to believe in any fabulous estimate of its value. Then, for the first time, Mrs. Gilsland remembered her unlucky trifle, with, not anger, but a pang of mortification. The wearer of such a shawl did certainly deserve something better than apples and custards, to which familiar dainties she had fallen back in despair. However, the luncheon was so far satisfactory, that it was eaten in perfect freedom, with a lively flow of conversation on all sides, which exhilarated even Horace, and raised Susan into a little paradise. What a difference it made to the common table, when Uncle Edward sat at the head instead of papa!--what an extraordinary revolution life would undergo, if the bread of every day were sweetened by such domestic intercourse as this! While her brother rose into a certain glow of personal exultation in the freedom he experienced, Susan, thinking less of herself, and feeling more deeply, found herself, unawares, surprised by the sudden mortification of a comparison. Involuntarily tears came into her eyes, and as she grew more grateful and affectionate towards her uncle, her heart ached more and more for her father. She saw now all the unnatural misery of their life. Why was it? But these thoughts did not take possession of the girl--they only came over her mind in a sudden, painful overflow as the tears came to her eyes; and then she thought of Horace's instructions to her; and, moved by strong curiosity and anxiety of her own--of a very different kind from her brother's--proceeded to obey him. "Uncle," said Susan, with an honest, enquiring look, "did you see very much of mamma after she was married? But ah, I forgot--you went to India so soon." "I saw her only when I returned, my love," said Uncle Edward--"when you were a baby, and Horace a bold boy of five--yes, and before that, when I had to come home on business, when your other uncles in India made me their commissioner to look after the family affairs. At that time I lived with my sister; that is five-and-twenty years ago."