His care for Patience was always his first thought.
"Good! My dear, yes, good as good can be.

Better than I ever hoped for.

She is well, and she's coming back, to _us_, mother! do you hear?
She is coming back for good.

It doesn't seem possible, it doesn't seem as though it can be true, yet it says so on the letter.
Hark to it--in't it like the dear child herself speaking ?" The terrified look which had come into Patience's face died away.
She could not speak, but she put out one shaking hand and thrust it into that of her husband, and so they read the glad news.

It was a curious, excited, incoherent letter, but it told them all they wanted to know, for the time, at any rate.
"My Dearest Granp, "I have been longing to write all this time and tell you where I am, but I could not, and now father is dead and Charlie, and mother wants to go home to live with her father, and I am coming home to you! Mother told me to write and ask if I may, and I am very well and happy, but, oh, I am longing to see you and granny.