“You are glad you have found your father?” he said, during a pause in the conversation. “Glad? Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?” Fanny replied. “I once told you I believed I should find him. He is not like you, nor Judge Prescott, nor anybody I ever knew, but he is _mine_, and you must like him.” “I intend to,” Roy said, “and now fire away at Tom. What is he like?” If there was sarcasm intended Fanny did not know it, and answered readily, “He is nice, too,—though not like father. I don’t quite know what I mean, only he is different. I am sorry for him. He was to marry Inez, you know, and now that can never be, and what I don’t understand is that he seldom comes into her room, and when he does she is sure to have a chill. She used to ask me often where he was and when I said, ‘Do you want to see him?’ she’d say, ‘No, I only want to know if he has gone out.’ I told him of it and he said, a little irritably, ‘Tell her I’m always in the house.’ That seemed to quiet her. Strange, isn’t it?” Before Roy could answer, Fanny exclaimed, “There’s father,” and Mark Hilton appeared, looking surprised at the sight of a young man, with his arm around his daughter. “Father, this is Roy,—come all the way from Boston,” Fanny said, and the two men were soon shaking hands and looking keenly at each other in the moonlight which fell upon them. Roy saw a tall man, with a slight stoop, who must have been handsome once and was good looking still, with something in his language and manners indicative of education and a knowledge of good society. Mark saw a boyish young fellow, with innocence and purity written on his face, and thanked God that Fanny’s choice had fallen upon him. At first he was a little reserved, for he never grasped the hand of an honest man that he did not experience a twinge of shame, and this was very strong in the presence of Roy, who, as Craig Mason’s son, was allied with the past, and whose frank, honest eyes were studying him so closely. If Mark felt any trepidation in meeting Roy, Tom felt it in a greater degree. He guessed who the young man was on the piazza with Mark, for he knew Fanny had written him to come, and for a minute he shook like a leaf. Then steadying himself with the thought that he had nothing to fear from Roy, he went forward to meet him as he came in, greeting him cordially and seeming wholly at his ease. When supper was over the three men began chatting together as familiarly as if they had known each other all their lives. Roy casually mentioned Ridgefield to Fanny, saying he had left his father and mother there, and both Mark and Tom began to ply him with questions concerning the town and Uncle Zacheus and Dotty. “You know we lived there years ago and are interested in the place,” Mark said, and Roy told them all he knew, and then at the first opportunity plunged into the subject uppermost in his mind—the robbers and the hold up on the road.