They followed their own meditations, glad or sorrowful, until the last curve was turned, and they stopped before the great white pillars of the portico.

Then Maurice remembered that this was his first coming home as master, and felt a momentary shyness take possession of him before his own new importance.

He had been able during his absence to keep Hunsdon so much in the background, and to be so thoroughly the natural, portionless, Maurice Leigh.

He jumped out of the carriage, however, and was too much occupied in helping his father, to think, for the next few minutes, of his own sensations at all.

Then he discovered what he had not before thought about--that there were still two or three of the old servants who remembered his mother and her marriage, and who were eager to be recognised by "the Captain." And so the coming home was got over, and Mr.Leigh was fairly settled in the house from which so long ago he had stolen away his wife.