and difficulties of this troublesome world,
when a body who lacks their pleasant buoyancy
will sit down in doleful dumps and let
his cares ride over him just as they will.
Robin Branston and Alice his wife were
always poor, struggling and hopeful; the
one cheered and upheld the other, and while
their family anxieties yearly increased, their
natural cheerfulness increased too. The
photographic business was poorly remunerative,
but Robin was a quick wit at a caricature,
and when times were dull he was not
superior to lithographing a music title,
circular, or a bill-head; indeed, he could
turn his hand to anything in the draughtsman's
way, and did; with three curly pates,
each a step above the other, and six of the
brightest blue eyes in the world looking to
papa's hands for all manner of things, he was
not—being of a sound heart and head—
likely to stand idle in the market-place
waiting for something to turn up. Alice
was a very comfortable helpmate for him;
she always looked bright and pleasant, and
prettily dressed in the simplest materials,
and her children were daisies for bloom and
health; Robin, spite of precarious work and
precarious pay, was a happy man in a very
happy home. His father had been dead now
seven years; his brother Carl, with whom
since that event he had held no communication
whatever, had been absent from
England upwards of five; and his bachelor
friends had been drifted hither and thither,
until, beyond his fireside, Robin had no very
strong interest remaining.

By this fireside, he, his wife and his
children, were spending a cheerful Christmas
eve. It was stormy out of doors; the wind
and the rain were holding high holiday
amongst the chimney tops and church
steeples; and there was just that sound of
hopeless drenched discomfort in the streets
that made the crackling fire look the very
shrine of household ease and happiness.
Robin had the youngest boy on his knee,
taking repose after four and twenty journeys
to Banbury Cross and back; the eldest had
retired into private life under the table to
enjoy at peace a new picture-book; and
master Frank was lying on the hearth-rug
with his shoe-soles in the air, setting out a
Robinson Crusoe puzzle; Alice had idle
fingers for once, and softly reflective eyes,
which looked as if they were seeing pictures
in the fire—pictures, perhaps, of a great
future for her children, and a calm autumn
time for Robin and herself, after their
working season was past and gone.

At last she spoke:

"So Carl has come back to England. I
wish we were on good terms, Robin; it is
unchristian to quarrel for years."

"So it is, Alice. What made you speak
of him just now?"

"I was thinking of him, poor fellow. I
wish he would come home to us for a month
or two, we should do him a world of good.
He has never thoroughly got over his father's
death."

"How strange our minds should touch the
same point. That was just what I was
saying to myself. Listen— what is that?"

It was a long irregular knocking at the
street door; Robin looked up at his startled
wife, and said:

"It can be nobody but Carl!"

It was Carl. He came groping in, dazzled
by the change from the darkness in the
streets to the glowing brilliance of the
parlour. Robin grasped him heartily by the
hand and bade him welcome. Carl stood for
a minute looking from one figure to the other
with a bewildered air, moving his hand
uneasily over his face as if to clear away some
mist. His appearance was dejected in the
extreme: his clothing was drenched, his
heavy cloak literally clinging to him with
the wet, and his hair lay dabbled in grey
streaks upon his forehead. His face was
white and worn, as if he had risen from the
bed of tedious and painful disease; his
voice, when he spoke in answer to his
brother's greeting, came up out of his chest,
hollow and uncertain, like the voice of a man
who has kept long and enforced silence.
Alice made him sit down in her own chair.

"You have come off a journey, Carl, and
are quite worn out; you must not try to talk
yet," said she. He looked into her face for
a few seconds, and then asked:

"Why have you put your hair away from
your face? You do not look like yourself;
the long curls were prettier—the curls were
prettier, Robin, were they not? Yes, a great
deal prettier." And folding his hands one
over the other, he went on repeating "Yes,
prettier, a great deal prettier," like one in a
dream.

Robin seemed not to observe his odd
manner, and after a little while Carl, in
watching Alice as she moved about the tea-
table, recovered himself somewhat,
"I have come home for good, Robin, now,"
he said more collectedly;" I have bought a
place in Yorkshire, and am going to settle
down there and lead the life of a country
gentleman—a country gentleman!" and he
laughed.

"That will be very nice, Carl; you must
be sick of wandering by this time, are you
not?" asked Alice.

"Sick of my life—sick of everything! You
must come—all of you—and keep me
company; the more the merrier. Those are your
boys, Robin?" The three children had dropped
their several employments on the
entrance of their stranger uncle, and now
stood at a respectful distance watching him
with intense curiosity. At his mention of
them Frank drew a step or two nearer,
tightly grasping the key of his puzzle, the
pieces of which were strewn on the hearth-
rug.