Then I knew who it was, and, with a glad cry, exclaimed:
“Oh, Tom! Tom! I am so glad. Why didn’t you come before, when I wanted you so much?”
I had struggled to my feet, but did not try to release myself from the arm which held me so fast. In my excitement and surprise I forgot the years since we had met, forgot that he was a full-grown man, and no longer the “spindle-shanks,” as I used sometimes to call him—forgot everything but the fact that he had come back to me again, and that I was no longer alone and friendless in the world. Tom was there with me, a tower of strength, and I did not hesitate to lean upon my tower at once, and when he said, as only Tom could say, in a half-pitiful, half-laughing tone, “Have it out, Norah. Put your head down here, and cry,” I laid my head on the big overcoat, and “cried it out.”
I think he must have cried, too, for, as soon as his hands were at liberty, he made vigorous use of his pocket-handkerchief, and I noticed a redness about his eyes, when at last I ventured to look him fully in the face. How changed he was from the long, lank, thin-faced, sandy-haired Tom of old! Broad-shouldered, broad-chested, brown-faced brown-haired, and brown-bearded, there was scarcely a vestige left of the boy I used to know, except the bright smile, the white, even teeth, and the eyes, which were so kind and honest in their expression, and which, in their turn, looked so searchingly at me. I had divested myself of my hat and sacque by this time, and came back to the fire, when, turning the gas-jets to their full height, Tom made me stand directly under the chandelier, while he scanned me so closely that I felt the hot blood mounting to my hair, and knew my cheeks were scarlet.
“How changed and old he must think me,” I said to myself, just as he asked:
“I say, Mousey, how have you managed to do it?”
“Do what?” I asked, and he continued:
“Managed to keep so young, and fair, and pretty, or rather, to grow so pretty, for you are ten times handsomer than you were that day you walked down the lane with me, twelve years ago, and I said good-by with such a lump in my throat.”
“Oh, Tom, how can you——” I began, when he stopped me short and continued:
“Hear me first, and then put in as many disclaimers as you choose. I want to tell you at once all it concerns you now to know of my life in India. Those first years I was there I fell in with bad associates, and came near going to the dogs, as you know, and nothing saved me from it, I am sure, but the knowing that a certain little English girl was praying for me every day, and still keeping faith in me, as she wrote me in her letters. I could not forget the little girl, Norah, and the memory of her and her pathetic, ‘You will reform, Tom, for the sake of the dear old times, if for nothing else,’ brought me back when my feet were slipping over the brink of ruin, and made a man of me once more. I do not know why Mr. Rand trusted me and kept me through everything, as he did, unless it was for certain business qualities which I possessed, and because I did my work well and faithfully. When your father died you know I offered to come home, but you bade me not, and said you did not need me; and so I staid, for money was beginning to pour in upon me, and I grew richer and richer, while you—oh, Norah, I never dreamed to what you were reduced, or nothing would have kept me away so long. I always thought of you as comfortable and happy, in pleasant lodgings, with a competence from your father. I did not know of music scholars and daily toil to earn your bread. Why didn’t you tell me, Norah? Surely I had a right to know—I, your brother Tom!”