I reached the residence of Mrs. Busby about noon. I saw around me many old familiar objects; at the sight of several, I felt as if the burden of many years had been lifted from my shoulders. The garrulity of Mr. Macindoe, then in the grave, was renewed, and the past returned, as if each particular event was still in the performance. But when I reached the door of my early home, the spell was broken, and the recollection of my disappointments since I first left it grew painful in my spirit, like those gnawing insects and reptiles which are said to fasten themselves in the flesh and will not be shaken away.

The house bore the same aspect of trimness which it ever bears in my memory. In one thing alone was it different; the brass knocker, which in the olden time was daily brightened, appeared on this occasion muffled with a piece of green baize, and the parlour shutters had not been that morning opened.

I knocked, and by some unconscious accident, though the knocker was tied up, beat with it the same rhythm with which I playfully announced myself in other years. Nanse, the old housemaid, recognized the sound at once, and opened the door, but not with her wonted blithe chiding for the din; on the contrary, she was demure in her aspect, and said, with a tear in her eye,

“Oh, but I’m glad ye’re come! the mistress heard your knock, and looked in my face, for she canna speak—she’ll never speak again.”