The only other words they heard were, "Ma! Ma!" uttered in a voice trembling with joy.
No pen can adequately describe that home-coming. Jessie Buchanan was forgotten for the moment, but as she saw the daughter's head resting first on father's and then on mother's shoulder, and heard the old man say again and again, "My Nell: oh! my Nell," her cup of joy was full.
It was not what one could call a praying home, but on that early Sabbath morning four people knelt in the little sitting-room, and Jessie Buchanan's first audible prayer was offered in thanksgiving for the home-coming of the wanderer. And to-day, in the little church in the grove, one of the regular worshippers is Nellie Gillard.