If the doctor was an eccentric man, he could be, when the occasion demanded it, both kind and thoughtful. More than once during Katharine's confinement he had ridden far beyond his circuit, and visited her in that lonely prison. No one was ever made aware of the fact, and he alone, of all that neighborhood, with one exception, was informed that Nelson Thrasher was also an inmate of the same prison. From the good old people it had been kept with religious delicacy. They knew that Katharine had a right to her freedom, and could now return home at pleasure; but she had written to ask more time. Duties, she said, to her fellow-prisoners kept her among them yet a little longer. She was free to depart, but the hospital needed her, and with the warden's consent she remained in voluntary service, teaching those whom she would soon leave behind how to tend and comfort the sick as she had done. This was an appeal that the old people could understand, so the lone mother submitted quietly to a few more months of solitude, and the Thrashers said to each other:

"Who knows but Nelson may come back before then?"

But time creeps on, even in a prison, and at last Thrasher was set free. The doctor knew the time, and had the harness put on his old friend that morning at an early hour. The horse did not exactly like this proceeding. He objected to any long ride without the saddle-bags. Indeed, he did not feel exactly like a respectable doctor's horse without that appendage, and remonstrated against the indignity of reins, thills, and whiffle-trees, with vigorous shakes of the head, and even a vicious kick or two. But the doctor came out and expostulated with him after his own quaint fashion, and directly the two went off in harmony, one at each end of the reins.

For two whole days the sick of that neighborhood for fifteen miles around took care of themselves, and grumbled accordingly.

On the evening of the second day, there was a terrible rumbling of loose wheels along the Derby turnpike, for the brown horse had caught sight of his home, and instantly went off in a rickety series of leaps that almost tossed the doctor from his seat in front of the wagon.

"Don't be afraid," he said, turning to the back seat, where a man and woman were seated, with the light of a crescent moon lying tenderly on their faces. "It's his way when things go to suit him. The sight of home always sets him off."

"Oh, I am not afraid," said a sweet female voice "It's a long time since either of us have known what fear was. Isn't it, Nelson?"

The man thus addressed clasped the little hand which stole into his with tender force, but said nothing. His heart was too full. The trial that lay before him at the end of that ride might have taxed the courage of any man.

They rode on to the doctor's house. He got out of the wagon, removed the temporary seat which had accommodated him from Simsbury, and held a silent counsel with his horse, patting the old fellow on the neck, and using all the conciliatory blandishments for deluding horseflesh into obedience, which have since been dignified into a science.

"There now, get along," he said, moving toward the gate. "He'll go ahead without balking. No need of a whip. The old chap wont stand that from anybody but me. Drive on, and God be with you."

The strange man leaned heavily on his crutches, and gently lifted his hat as he uttered these words. The soft moonlight fell upon his head, and a grander one seldom bared itself in reverence to a noble sentiment.

As the doctor wheeled around he saw the members of his family coming out to welcome him home. His manner changed at once. Inwardly delighted with their prompt affection he put the children aside with good-natured rebukes of their clamorous joy, and stalking into the room, which served as an office, sunk quietly into a leathern easy chair, and desired the eldest boy to hand down his fiddle. The boy took an old violin from its place on the wall and gave it into his father's hand. The doctor drew a lump of rosin from his pocket, rasped the bow with it for a full minute, then lifting the instrument to his shoulder began to play; directly the children came rushing in from the hall and kitchen, astonished, for some of the wildest and most invigorating music heard for many a day, rang out from the dark old violin, filling the whole house with cheerfulness.

The doctor's wife—a fine woman, of the Connecticut stamp—came softly into the room with word that his supper was on the table; but he only answered with a dash at Yankee Doodle, and revelled in it with a zest ten thousand suppers could not have excited. The good housewife never urged her husband to any thing; she knew the folly of that too well; so she sat down pleasantly and listened to his music. It was well worth the trouble, for the doctor threw off a world of generous thankfulness in those erratic notes, and when music comes from the soul it is always good. She asked no questions, but knew very well that something satisfactory had happened to her husband, for he always expressed these feelings through his violin.

Meantime the two travellers kept on up the turnpike. They passed the rock spring, which sparkled out from the shadows cast over it from the dogwood thickets; all cut up root and branch in these days, and moved slowly over the old bridge. They could see the white spire of the Episcopal church, rising into the moonlight from the high bank opposite, and, with the sight, Katharine's heart melted within her. She lifted her eyes to Thrasher; the moonlight lay full upon his face. It was pale and troubled. In that church he had been baptized. Katharine took his hand with touching gentleness, and pressed it to her lips. Her face was so heavenly that he bent down and kissed it, leaving a heavy tear on her cheek, which she would not have wiped away for the world.

"Ah, Nelson!" she said, clasping her hands and lifting her eyes from the church spire to the heavens, which it seemed to penetrate—"how plainly I see the great goodness of God in all that has happened. At first it was very dark, and I struggled against the cruelty of that arrest, and the unjust sentence which branded me before the world. I forgot that the Son of God was thus assailed, thus branded! and worse still, put to death, that Christianity might be our inheritance. I did not know what great happiness might spring out of this degradation; how holy a work lay waiting for me in that prison!"

"My poor girl, it was a terrible life for you. Can God forgive me for bringing you there?"

"Nelson, this is wrong—it is unkind! It was to be; God knew what was best, and sent me in the path of a great duty against my will, or I never should have found it. He had compassion on those poor creatures so barbarously cut off from every thing sweet and good in life. They were perishing or turning to demons for the want of a little care, a few kind words, a smile of pity now and then. I was poor as poor could be, helpless as a child, but these things I could give them; so he thought it best that I should go.

"I was rebellious at first, Nelson, and wondered how it could be that I, an innocent woman, should suffer among the guilty. I was so young, so weak, and miserably selfish. Besides, I hoped so fondly that you would come back and save me. But they were dragging me away from all possibility of seeing you."

"My poor Katharine!"

"Oh, it was hard! it was hard!" she said, laying her forehead on his shoulder; "for I thought you loved me! I thought you loved me!"

He drew her head close to his bosom, but said nothing; self-reproach held his heart in silence.

"With this hope of seeing you again, rising above every thing, it was a cruel thought that you might come home and find me there, think perhaps that I had harmed your child."

"No, Katharine—no, I never could have believed that. In my most insane moments I knew and felt how good you were."

"But these thoughts would come to me in my prison, Nelson; I could not help that. So I struggled against that hard fate and wanted to die. The people were wrong and harsh with me, the law was wrong, the judges were wrong, but God was right."

"I—I was the most cruel of all," said Thrasher, in a low, pained voice.

"Still it was all needful. What else would have won me from home to live among those poor convicts, to help them and feel for them, till a beautiful happiness sprang up to me out of those dreary mines. Then, then," she added, with a gush of tender gratitude, "just as I had learned to live and endure for others, knowing that God's wisdom was higher than man's justice, you came, my husband, and I had the power to help you. I so weak, and you so strong! From that day I knew how great a blessing had been won for me, out of what seemed the deadly ruin of a life. In that black depth I found the heart of my husband." "Oh, a worthless, wicked heart, Katharine!"

"But it was mine—all mine!"

He girded her closer with his arm, and that was answer enough.

"Then you began to trust me, and believe in me, Nelson; as a strong man lets some little child lead him, because of its very helplessness; you listened to me and loved me—for you do love me, Nelson!"

"The God you worship so beautifully, Katharine, only knows how much I love you!"

"Oh, we shall be very happy!" answered the young woman, bowing her head, while a soft rain of tears fell down her cheeks. "Every soul in the prison loved us. God has forgiven us!"

"Not us, Katharine! It is I that have need of His pardon; not you, my wife!"

But in her sweet humility she would not have it so, and protested against it. "No, no; I was untamed, impatient, disobedient to my mother. In a woman these are great sins. We are equal there as in the mercies which fall around us now."

Thrasher was a man of few words, but his wife understood this, and saw, by the emotion in his face, how deeply his spirit was touched.

They fell into silence after this, and rode on slowly, thinking of those they were about to meet. The wagon rolled heavily up Falls Hill, turned at the old willow tree, and passed up the Bungy road approaching the old homestead.

They came to Mrs. Allen's house first. It was dark and still as the grave. Why was this? The hour did not warrant such dreary darkness, such utter solitude.

Katharine, who was leaning eagerly forward, fell back with a heavy sigh. Was her mother dead? Had sorrow broken her heart at last? Was it a tomb to which she had come, after eight long years of imprisonment?

They left the wagon, and knocked at the door. There was no footstep within. No answering voice. Not even a gleam of fire light to speak of an existing household.

They returned to the wagon without speaking, and drove slowly over the hill; very slowly, for that empty house had filled them with painful forebodings.

From the butternut tree they got a first sight of the old homestead. From the sitting room window a steady light was burning, which fell upon a great snowball bush, turning the huge white blossoms that covered it into globes of gold. "They are alive; they are at home!" said Thrasher. "God be thanked!"