About eighteen months after this conversation, Helen, one day, as was her wont, had walked over to William Kerr's, with her young son in her arms, to spend an hour or two with them, and wait until her husband called, on his return to the manse from his visits. William had the babe in his arms, and was talking, with all the fondness of age, about its mother, when he first had her on his knees in the same chair and at the same hearth. Their attention was excited by the tramp of horses' feet approaching the house. Helen started up, and ran to the window to see who it might be. She could not recognise them: it was a gentleman in a military undress, attended by a servant. The first dismounted, and, giving his horse to the attendant, stepped hastily to the door, which he opened with the freedom of an old acquaintance, and, before she could leave the window, he was in the room. Helen recognised him at a glance. "It is Willie, father!" she cried, in a voice of joy. "I am so happy to see you again, and well!--for we all thought you had been dead." It was indeed Willie; but he appeared not to partake of the joy of those who greeted him with such fervour. He gazed at Helen, and then at the babe she now held in her arms, in silence; and a deep shade of disappointment clouded his brow. He had stood thus for a minute or two in silence, with a hand of each of the old people grasped in his. Helen felt awkward and abashed at his melancholy and imploring glance, and, turning from it, appeared busy with her son. Willie seated himself, and seemed as if in a fit of abstraction, his eyes still fixed on the object of his early love, and strong emotion depicted on his countenance. The sight of the child had awakened suspicions which he was not for a time able to confirm or dissipate by a simple question; and his agitation was so extreme, that no one present could call up resolution enough to explain to him how or when Helen had changed her situation. The silence was painful to all, but to none more than to Willie himself; for he could read in the looks of William and Grizzel the reason why they were unwilling to speak. They felt for him; and Helen's eye was filled with a tear, as she looked up blushingly into the face of one who had claimed the first love offering of her virgin heart. This state of painful and too eloquent silence was put an end to by him who had most to dread from a disclosure. Starting, as if by an effort forcing himself out of a train of thoughts, he held out his finger, and pointed to the babe that was looking up smiling into the face of Helen, in whose eye the tear still stood-- "Is it possible, Helen?" said he, in a voice choking with strong emotion, and unable to get out the rest of the sentence, the meaning of which his pointed finger sufficiently indicated. Helen was silent; the blush rose higher on her face, and the tear dropped on the face of the child. William and Grizzel looked at each other, as if each wished the other to speak.