CHAPTER XIV.
Alfred R.King, when summoned home to Boston by the illness of his mother, had, by advice of physicians, immediately accompanied her to the South of France, and afterward to Egypt.

Finding little benefit from change of climate, and longing for familiar scenes and faces, she urged her son to return to New England, after a brief sojourn in Italy.

She was destined never again to see the home for which she yearned.

The worn-out garment of her soul was laid away under a flowery mound in Florence, and her son returned alone.

During the two years thus occupied, communication with the United States had been much interrupted, and his thoughts had been so absorbed by his dying mother, that the memory of that bright evening in New Orleans recurred less frequently than it would otherwise have done.