Mr. Hodges must have been watching for him, for he opened the door before he reached it. "Come in, Freddie," he said in a low voice, tiptoeing back to his chair. "I 've got great news fur you." "You need n't tell me what it is," said Brent. "I know that my father is here." Eliphalet started up. "Who told you?" he said; "some blockhead, I 'll be bound, who did n't break it to you gently as I would 'a' done. Actu'lly the people in this here town--" "Don't blame the people, Uncle 'Liph," said the young man, smiling in spite of himself. "I found it out for myself before I arrived; and, I assure you, it was n't gently broken to me either." To the old man's look of bewildered amazement, Brent replied with the story of his meeting with his father. "It 's the good Lord's doin's," said Eliphalet, reverently. "I don't know just whose doing it is, but it is an awful accusation to put on the Lord. I 've still got enough respect for Him not to believe that." "Freddie," exclaimed the old man, horror-stricken, "you ain't a-gettin' irreverent, you ain't a-beginnin' to doubt, air you? Don't do it. I know jest what you 've had to bear all along, an' I know what you 're a-bearin' now, but you ain't the only one that has their crosses. I 'm a-bearin' my own, an' it ain't light neither. You don't know what it is, my boy, when you feel that somethin' precious is all your own, to have a real owner come in an' snatch it away from you. While I thought yore father was dead, you seemed like my own son; but now it 'pears like I 'ain't got no kind o' right to you an' it 's kind o' hard, Freddie, it 's kind o' hard, after all these years. I know how a mother feels when she loses her baby, but when it 's a grown son that 's lost, one that she 's jest been pilin' up love fur, it 's--it 's--" The old man paused, overcome by his emotions. "I am as much--no, more than ever your son, Uncle 'Liph. No one shall ever come between us; no, not even the man I should call father." "He is yore father, Freddie. It 's jest like I told Hester. She was fur sendin' him along." In spite of himself, a pang shot through Brent's heart at this. "But I said, 'No, no, Hester, he 's Fred's father an' we must take him in, fur our boy's sake.'" "Not for my sake, not for my sake!" broke out the young man. "Well, then, fur our Master's sake. We took him in. He was mighty low down. It seemed like the Lord had jest spared him to git here. Hester 's with him now, an'--an'--kin you stand to hear it?--the doctor says he 's only got a little while to live." "Oh, I can stand it," Brent replied, with unconscious irony. The devotion and the goodness of the old man had softened him as thought, struggle, and prayer had failed to do. "Will you go in now?" asked Eliphalet. "He wants to see you: he can't die in peace without." The breath came hard between his teeth as Brent replied, "I said I would n't see him. I came because I thought you needed me."