CHAPTER XL.
AMEN And now there is little left for me to tell and my tale draws to its end, for which I am thankful, for I am very old and writing is a weariness to me, so great a weariness indeed that many a time during the past winter I have been near to abandoning the task.
For a while Lily and I sat almost silent in this same room where I write to-day, for our great joy and many another emotion that was mixed with it, clogged our tongues.

Then as though moved by one impulse, we knelt down and offered our humble thanks to heaven that had preserved us both to this strange meeting.

Scarcely had we risen from our knees when there was a stir without the house, and presently a buxom dame entered, followed by a gallant gentleman, a lad, and a maiden.

These were my sister Mary, her husband Wilfred Bozard, Lily's brother, and their two surviving children, Roger and Joan.

When she guessed that it was I come home again and no other, Lily had sent them tidings by the servant man John, that one was with her whom she believed they would be glad to see, and they had hurried hither, not knowing whom they should find.