“Rodney! and Nell!” burst from Joseph Morris’s lips, and he came running up with a beaming face. He kissed his little daughter several times. “Glad you are back! And you too, Sam,” he added to the old frontiersman. “And how are the twins?” and he chucked them under the chin.
“I am glad to be back,” said Rodney. “It seems like an age since I went away and joined the soldiers.”
They did not stop to tell their story, for it was only a step more to the log cabin. Mrs. Morris, the kindest of motherly women, came rushing out of the door to greet them.
“Nell, my Nell!” she burst out, and hugged her daughter over and over again, while the tears of joy streamed down her face. “Oh, how glad I am that you are back!”
“And I am glad too, mamma,” said Nell. “Oh, it’s been such a very, very long time since the Indians took me!”
“And Rodney!” went on Mrs. Morris, kissing his sunburnt cheek. “How did you stand it? Didn’t the old lameness bother you?” And then she hugged the twins and shook hands with Sam Barringford. It was indeed a happy meeting all around.
“You must stay home, at least for the winter,” said Joseph Morris to his son. “You have seen enough of peril for a time.”
“I am willing to stay home,” said Rodney. “But I think I ought to join Uncle Jim and Dave and Henry in the spring.”
He told all the news that evening, sitting around the kitchen fire, and Barringford and little Nell also told their tales. The old frontiersman wanted to know if any letter had come from England regarding the twins.
“Nothing as yet,” said Joseph Morris. “But it is something to know that their father’s name is Maurice Hamilton, and that he is well-to-do. Some day we shall probably hear from him.”