Home in a hospital! to him who had known what a natural home was, a place you live in with your own, possessing it to yourself, a secure shelter and refuge, what a chilly public place it was! He followed the porter of the hospital, who guided him up the bare stairs and pointed out the way to the matron’s rooms at the end of the long, lofty bare corridor, with a heart full of reluctance and disagreeable anticipations. He felt sure of being disapproved of, though he did not know what he had done that was wrong, and great discouragement and despondency, and a sense of injustice and an impulse of resistance filled his mind. It was not like a son going to his mother’s room, or a youth without a home to the centre of domestic warmth and protection, but like a clerk, or official messenger on business, that he knocked at the door pointed out to him. He was told to ‘Come in’ just as the messenger on business might have been told, and went in, and lingered for a moment by the door, struck by the strange impressiveness of the place; the great stream of unshadowed daylight, the height of the walls, too high for decoration, the furniture no more than necessity required, the large writing-table in the middle of the room, laden with books and papers. Mrs. Sandford, after her conversation with Susie, which had agitated her in spite of herself, had returned again to her work with more than ordinary absorption in it, and put up her hand to warn the new-comer against interrupting her in the midst of a calculation. John’s heart burned within him at this strange welcome. He stood for a moment undecided. It occurred to him, with a flash of resolution, that he would turn and go, cutting this bond, which was one of mere conventional connection, and, rushing forth, make his way as he could alone in the world. He was stopped in this sudden gleam of half-formed intention by a soft touch upon his arm, and a still softer touch on his cheek, and found Susie standing by him, whom he had not seen on coming in, looking at him with a tender interest and pride. ‘I did not see you right, last night,’ she said, ‘Johnnie dear. There was no light. Let me look at you now.’ ‘There is not very much to see, Susie.’ ‘Oh, there is a great deal to see: my little brother that I have never stopped thinking of all my life--and just like what I thought; but you are not my little brother now. Mother, here is John.’ Mrs. Sandford laid down her pen and held out her hand. ‘If I had lost the thread of that account, I should never have found it again,’ she said. ‘My work is in such arrear. How are you this morning, John? Let us see this place on your forehead.’ ‘It is nothing,’ he said, with a flush of colour.