Then starting to her feet, "Is the gentleman here? I must see him, speak to him, hear all he can tell me of my dear boy."
"Oh, wait just a moment, mother, dear," Mildred said, springing up and laying a detaining hand on her mother's arm; "father has gone out to speak to him. Ah, here he is," as Mr. Keith re-entered the room, his face shining with joy, every feature quivering with emotion.
He stepped hurriedly toward the little group. "Wife! wife!" he cried, catching her in his arms, "our boy, our dear Rupert; we have not lost him yet; he is restored to us as from the grave; he lives! he lives! thank God for his unmerited goodness and mercy!"
Rupert had followed his father, and standing at the half-open parlor door, thence catching a glimpse of his mother's loved face, he could restrain himself no longer.
In another moment he had her in his arms, holding her close and covering her face with kisses.
She did not faint, but lay on his breast weeping for joy as if she would weep her very life away, the rest looking on and weeping with her.
At last she lifted her head for a long, searching gaze into his face; the dear face she had not thought ever to see again on earth. "You are changed," she said, the tears streaming down her cheeks; "you have grown older, darker—there are lines of care and suffering my heart aches to see—but it is my own boy still; and your mother's eyes would have recognized you anywhere."
"And you, dearest mother, have grown so thin and pale, your hair so white," he said, with emotion.
"Never mind, my son; I shall grow young again now," she answered with a touch of her old time gayety; then gently withdrawing herself from his arms, looked on with eyes full of glad tears while brothers and sisters, each in turn, embraced and rejoiced over the lost and found again.
Perhaps the most affecting part of the scene was the meeting of the two brothers, each of whom had long believed the other slain.