Away up towards Rondellerie I thought I saw my grandfather in the fields.

I jumped over the green bank and came down to the house through the orchard.

The door stood wide and I went in.

My mother looked up in quick surprise at a visitor at so unusual an hour, and in a moment she was on my neck.
"My boy! my boy!" she cried.

"Now God be praised!" and sobbed and strained me to her, and I felt all her prayers thrill through her arms into my own heart.
It was quite a while before we could settle to reasonable talk, for, in spite of her repeated assertions that she had never really given me up, she could still hardly realise that I was truly alive and come back to her, and every other minute she must fling her arms round my neck to make sure.
Then up she jumped and set food before me, in quantity equal almost to the time I had been away, as though she feared I had eaten nothing since I left home.