“It is I and another,” cried John Ranger, pushing the door wide open. For a moment the brothers-in-law faced each other in silence. One was dumb with many conflicting emotions, the other with simple wonder.
“Your conscience must have troubled you,” said Lije, after an awkward pause, “or you wouldn’t have come back. But come in! I’ll start up the fire. Who’s this?” looking hard at Joseph, whose bronzed and bearded face was more than half concealed by the upturned collar of his fur-lined overcoat.
“Don’t you know him, Lije?”
“Naw, nor I don’t want to.”
Meanwhile Mrs. Robinson had emerged from her room after a hurried toilet.
“Sister Mollie!”
“Brother John!”
For half a minute not another word was spoken.
“I never expected to set eyes on you again,” cried the sister at last, as, half crying and half laughing, she held him at arm’s length for a better view. “It seemed as if you had left the world when you went to Oregon; and now you are back again,—the same old John.”