Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/292

268 Fisher, with a broad grin; "you were a scarecrow when yea found your way here, and no mistake."

"Bat how did you find oat who she was?" said Mrs. Fisher.

"By the merest accident. But you would never guess, so I will tell you all about it." And he detailed the circumstances with which the reader is familiar.

"Well, if I ever!" " grunted Mr. Fisher.

"I'm so thankful, Benny," Mrs. Fisher remarked; "though the finding of the note can make no difference in our regard for you, for we never doubted your honesty for a moment."

"Thank you, mammy;" and he looked fondly up into the face of the good woman who for so many years had been as a mother to him.

After break&st Benny took a book and went out into the fields to read, but somehow to-day the letters got hopelessly mixed, and all the lines seemed to run into one. He did his best to fix his mind upon the subject of the book, but in vain: before he had read a dozen words the letters would fade away, and his thoughts would be somewhere else; and not only his thoughts, but his eyes kept wandering in the direction of Brooklands, and he found himself weaving all kinds of fancies. But in every pattern stood out the face of one he had never forgotten either in joy or pain. How grandly life was opening out before him again! The mountain heights that had been so long in darkness were once more bathed in light. The wilderness