'Tis six, seven, eight years since.

The beard is all shorn, the curl is cut off, the eye looks through a glass, and the laugh--_helas_! gentlemen, the gay laugh of the boy Rogers is turned to the knit brow of the great man Armstrong." The company had had enough of elocution for one evening, and dismissed the orator with flattering marks of consideration.
The doctor and the vicar rose to go.

Close friends of the family as they were, even they were superfluous at a time like this.
But the American mayor remained.
"I guess," said he, "my nephew--" "Oh!" cried Jill, "then you are his uncle--dear, dear Mr Headland!" and the little maid flung herself into the astonished gentleman's arms and relieved her emotions with a flood of tears.
"Seems to me," said he, looking down and kindly patting the fair head, "my nephew's a hundred miles too far away at this minute." American mayors are not as a rule endowed with gifts of prophecy, but it seemed as if there was an exception to the rule in the case of Mr Headland; for a moment later the door opened, and the tutor, eye-glass erect, and blissfully unconscious of the interest which his entry excited, strolled jauntily in.
"Ah," said he, "you're still up, then.

I just caught the last--" He stopped short, and the glass dropped abruptly from his eye.

Roger had staggered to his feet and was standing with face aglow, stretching out his hand.
The tutor comprehended all.