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 He glanced toward the hills among which lay Shushan, where the last six years of his own life had been spent, and his mind reverted back to that awful night of his banishment when life seemed a mockery and annihilation a bliss. Further back still, he sees a kind old face crowned with silvery hair and tears of pity filling her eyes. "Dear old granny," he thought, "your prayer for mercy is answered; and though we may view things differently, we look in the same direction."

The city was stirring now and the busy hum of life had begun. Whistles from the factories and mills were calling to work. Seven o'clock, and the distant screech of a locomotive told of the nearing of Ulster Express.

"I feel it in my bones that we'll have company for breakfast," said Cornelia, rising and standing on tip-toe to see how many passengers got off. Cornelia's "feelings" were a family joke, but Hernando also arose and looked down the road, more to keep his companion from falling than from any expectancy of "company for breakfast."