It was the same little room in which Kitty had spent her childhood, from which Johnny first, and then long afterwards the husband and father, had been carried out to return no more. And yet it was not the same,--there was a neat rag carpet on the floor, a Christmas gift from Mrs. Minturn; the round table in the corner was covered with a bright red cloth, and strewn with a few books and papers; the full white curtain was looped away from the window, and the light of a clear sunset glimmered in the room; everything was neat and bright and cheery. The table was set for tea, the white cloth showing just the folds in which it was ironed; there were three plates and three cups and saucers, instead of two, while Kitty, in her restless wanderings around the room, and Mrs. Lewis, in her frequent glances out of the window, both showed that somebody was being watched and waited for. "The eastern train is in," Kitty said finally "Now, if he comes to-night, he'll be here in three minutes." And it could not have been much more than that when a quick, crushing step was heard on the gravel outside, then on the plank before the door, then the door swung open, and Edward Lewis walked into the little room out of which he had gone three years before. Kitty was all ready to spring forward, say, "Oh, Tip!" and throw her arms right around his neck. Instead, she stood still. Some way, in spite of the long letters which had passed between them during these years, Kitty had fully expected to see a stout, tanned boy, in a strong, coarse suit of grey, with thick boots and a new straw hat. Of, at least,--why, of course, she knew he must have changed some; hadn't she? But then she did _not_ think he would be so tall, and have a face and hands without tan or freckle, or that his clothes would be so _very_ black and fine, and fit as though they had grown on him, or that his collar would be so white and glossy, or his boots so small and shiny. So Kitty stood still in embarrassed silence. But the mother,--oh, she saw in him the picture of the dear, dead father, as he used to come to her long, long ago; the husband who, through all change and poverty and pain, she had _always_ loved! And all the tenderness that had ever been in her heart took form, and spoke in those words with which she came forward to greet her son,--"Oh, my _dear_ boy!" There was happiness in the little home that night; only the bedroom door was closed, and Edward knew that his father's bed was vacant.