Page 131 - Fairbrass

well-remembered landmarks came in view,
things since half forgotten rose unbidden

to his mind and made his heart ache.

Regrets, vain regrets ! Why, here, at this
very corner, under the shadow—-a smaller

shadow then— of this old sycamore tree,

his father had stopped, taken him to his
arms with unwonted affection, and told him

that they two were alone in the world now,

that he had promised his mother that they
should be all in all to each other, and that

they would never part. And as he remem­

bered this he threw himself down on the
grass, the long pent-up tears sprang from

his eyes, and he sobbed aloud, Fairbrass

was the only witness of this display of
weakness, and, since poor F'airbrass was

deaf and dumb, it did not matter. Ah, if

he could only have realised that Fairbrass
not only heard, but understood, and knew

that in the weakness he sought to conceal

lay his actual strength ? Not that the father
regretted all the past. The chief cause of

the quarrel— his marriage'—had been the