Mildred at Home: With Something About Her Relatives and Friends.

Chapter Fourteenth.

THE RETURN

On a pleasant October day the three families – including Miss Weston – were gathered at Mr. Keith's for a family tea-party; no very unusual occurrence.

The railroad had recently reached Pleasant Plains, and a few minutes before the call to tea the whistle of the afternoon train from the West had been heard.

They had but just seated themselves about the table, and Mr. Keith had asked a blessing on the food, when the door opened, and a stranger entered unannounced.

Every one looked up in surprise as he stood silently gazing at the mother.

The next instant she sprang up with a joyful cry and threw herself into his outstretched arms, weeping hysterically.

"Don!" was the simultaneous exclamation from the others, and they gathered about him laughing and crying in joyous excitement.

Yes, it was Don, and no other – Don who went away a smooth-faced boy, and had come back a bearded man.

With what a rapture of delight they embraced and welcomed him; yet delight mingled with grief, for how could they forget that two had gone out from them, and but one had returned? Celestia Ann stood outside of the circle, leaning her back against the wall and gazing at Don, the big tears streaming down her homely but kindly face; at length, stepping forward, she caught his hand in a vise-like grasp, saying, "It's Mister Don, sure enough, though I wouldn't a knowed him by his looks. They've all been a-huggin' and kissin' of you, and now it's my turn," catching him round the neck and giving him a resounding kiss. "You'll not mind, will you? seein' as I've know'd ye ever since you was a little feller – a mere baby, as one may say."

"I am very glad to find you here still, Celestia Ann," Don said, with a good-humored laugh; "and I don't object to the heartiness of your welcome; for I haven't had a kiss from a woman since I left home, until to-day."

"Well, no; I reckon not; I shouldn't never b'lieve you was the kind of a feller to be a-kissin' strange women folks. But now why on airth don't ye all set down and eat? Mr. Don must be awful hungry a-comin' all the way from Californy here."

"Most assuredly, if he has had nothing to eat since he started," laughed the doctor, resuming his place at the table, all the others doing likewise.

Then they remembered to introduce the returned wanderer to Flora, who had been a silent but not unmoved spectator of the little scene.

Far more talking than eating ensued.

Don did greater justice to the viands than most of the others, who were much occupied in looking at and listening to him; his mother especially. She feasted her eyes on his face, and lost not a tone of the voice she had for years feared she might never hear again this side the grave.

And he was perforce the chief speaker, though he had many questions to ask of relatives, friends, and acquaintance.

Parents, sisters, and brothers-in-law wanted to know all he had seen, done, and suffered, and plied him with questions till his mother remarked they were making him talk too much and giving him no chance to eat.

"And it is the very best meal I have sat down to since I went away nearly four years ago; I ought to be allowed to do it justice," laughed Don.

They were a long while at the table; yet Celestia Ann showed no impatience, though usually in great haste to "get the table cleared and the dishes washed up."

But at last they all withdrew to the parlor.

It was verging upon ten o'clock, yet no one seemed to have thought of bed, though Don might well have been supposed to be tired with his long and wearisome journey. Mildred and Zillah had taken their babies home, seen them safely to bed, and, leaving them in the care of their nurses, returned to the circle gathered in the parlor of their father's house.

Don was telling some of his adventures, and no one but Celestia Ann in the kitchen noticed the ringing of the door-bell.

She, hastening to answer it, found a tall man, wearing a very heavy beard and mustache, standing there.

"Good-evening," he said, with a polite inclination of the head; "is my – is Mrs. Keith in?"

Celestia Ann staggered back, turning very pale in the light of the lamp that hung suspended from the ceiling. "I – I should say I knowed that voice if – if the feller that owned it hadn't been killed dead by the Injuns more'n three years back; leastways so we hearn tell," she gasped. "Be ye Rupert Keith, or his ghost?"

"I am no ghost, Celestia Ann," he said with a smile. "Reports are sometimes quite untrue, as was the one you speak of."

She grasped his hand, and burst out sobbing for very joy.

"There, there!" he said kindly, "I am afraid mother will hear and be alarmed. If she should hurry out and find me here – so unexpectedly, it might be more than she could well bear."

"Yes, she'd ought to be prepared; 'specially as she's had one great surprise a'ready to day in Don's comin' – "

"What, is Don here? just returned?" he cried. "Oh, but that is good news! They're in the parlor, I think; I'll go into the sitting-room and get you to call Dr. Landreth out (the rest will suppose he's wanted to see a patient), and he can prepare my mother."

"A first-rate plan, Mr. Rupert," said Celestia Ann. Waiting till he reached the door of the sitting-room, she opened that of the parlor.

"Doctor," she said, "there's a man out here a-wantin' to speak to ye."

"Oh, I hope it isn't a call to the country," remarked Mildred, as her husband made haste to obey the summons.

The conversation in the parlor went on, no one supposing the caller a person in whom any of them had an interest.

As the doctor entered the sitting-room the stranger rose and held out his hand. "Very glad to see you again, Dr. Landreth. You have not forgotten me?" he said inquiringly, and with a humorous look.

"I am afraid I have, sir; if ever I had the pleasure of your acquaintance," was the reply, as the offered hand was taken, and the doctor gazed doubtfully into the bronzed and bearded face.

"Ah, Charlie, is your memory so short?" Rupert asked in a half-reproachful tone, holding fast his brother-in-law's hand and looking him steadily in the eyes.

"Why!" gasped the doctor, "it isn't, it can't be – "

"Yes, it can be, and it is," laughed Rupert, though his voice trembled with emotion; "God has mercifully spared me and brought me back again to my father's house. Are all well? Can you prepare my mother for the news that I am yet alive and here?"

"In a moment – when I have myself so far recovered from the shock as to be fully able to control my voice," answered the doctor jocosely, but with a very perceptible tremble in his tones. "My dear fellow, if I am so overcome with happiness, what will she be?"

"Joy seldom kills?" Rupert said interrogatively.

"Rarely; and yet it has been fatal in some instances. We must move with caution."

He stepped into the hall, opened the parlor door, and called softly to his wife.

She came to him at once. "What is it? has baby wakened?"

He gently drew the door to behind her before he answered. Then taking her in his arms, "Milly, love," he said tenderly, and she noticed that his voice was unsteady, "can you bear very great joy?"

She gave him a startled look. "What is it? O Rupert? No, no, that cannot be!"

"Yes, dearest, news has come that his – that the report of his death was false – "

"Is he here?" she gasped. "O Charlie, don't keep me in suspense! take me to him."

"I did not say he was here, love; only that he was still alive at last reports."

But through the half-open door of the sitting-room she had caught a glimpse of a tall form that wore a strangely familiar look, and breaking from her husband's arms she ran to see who it was; ran into the arms of her long lost and deeply mourned brother, outstretched to receive her.

He held her close, she weeping hysterically on his breast. "Dear, dear brother! where, where have you been so long, so very long! while we wept and mourned for you as dead?"

"A captive among the Indians," he answered. "Tell me, has there been any break in the dear circle since I went away?"

"No, we are all here."

"Thank God for that!" he said with reverent gratitude. "And now I must see my mother; I can wait no longer."

"Just one moment: I will send father out and break the good news to her as gently and cautiously as I can," Mildred said, and glided away through the hall and into the parlor, her eyes full of glad tears, her face radiant with joy.

"Some one in the sitting-room wishes to see you, father," she whispered to him; then turning to the others, as he rose and went out, she was opening her lips to speak when Annis exclaimed, "Why, Milly, you look as if you had found a gold mine!"

"Better than that," cried Mildred, dropping on her knees by her mother's side and putting her arms about her. "Mother, dear, can you bear the best of good tidings?"

"What is it, child? tell me at once; nothing is so hard to bear as suspense," said Mrs. Keith, turning pale. "Has Ada come home? Don't keep me from her a moment," and she rose hastily, as if to hurry from the room.

"No, mother, not that; but still better and stranger news," Mildred said, gently forcing her back into her seat; "a gentleman just returned from the far West brings the news that our Rupert was only taken prisoner by the Indians, not killed."

Mrs. Keith seemed about to faint; a sudden, death-like pallor overspread her face, and Don threw his arm round her.

"Mother, dear, it is good news; what could be better?" he said, his voice quivering with excitement and joy.

"Yes," she responded, her color coming back; "oh, can it be possible that my son yet lives? 'Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men!'"

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.

But it was a moving spectacle throughout; Celestia Ann, peering in at the door, cried heartily from very sympathy, and Flora Weston, feeling like an intruder upon the sacred privacy of the family, stole quietly away to Dr. Landreth's, leaving word with Celestia Ann that she had gone "thinking it time for an invalid to be in bed."

But it was long before her absence was noticed.

Rupert did not attempt to tell his story that night; it was much too long, he said; to-morrow he would gather them all about him, if they liked, and go into the details. In the mean while there is something which he must say at once.

"I shall greatly surprise you all, I know," he said, with a happy smile. "Mother, dear," turning to her, "do not be shocked when I tell you that I have brought a wife with me."

He read a look of astonishment, not unmixed with dismay, on every face; but they waited in silence to hear what more he had to say.

"She is a Mexican," he went on, "of Spanish descent, and very beautiful, I think; but, better still, she is a Protestant and a real Christian, so far as man may judge. We were fellow-captives, and I doubtless owe my life to her kind and skilful nursing."

"Then we will all welcome her!" exclaimed both his parents in a breath. "Where is she now?"

"At the hotel; she feared to come upon you without previous announcement; in fact, she is very much afraid of being unwelcome as it is," Rupert answered, with a wistful glance from one to another of the loved faces about him.

"Tell her she needn't," cried Mildred, with impulsive warmth. "Say that we owe her a debt of gratitude it will be impossible ever to pay, if she is a good and loving wife to the dear brother whose life she has saved."

"Yes, tell her that," said his mother. "Go and bring her to us. She shall have a daughter's welcome from me."

"May I go with you?" Don asked, as Rupert rose to go.

"And I?" added the father, rising also. "We will assure her of her welcome before she has to face us all here."

"I feel inclined to go myself," said the mother, smiling affectionately upon Rupert; "but no, on second thoughts I should rather have our first interview here, with no prying eyes to look on."

"Yes," he said; "that will be best; but," and he glanced a little wistfully at his sisters.

All three at once offered to accompany him.

"Thank you, you dear girls," he said heartily, "but some of you should stay with mother."

After a little discussion it was agreed that Zillah should go, the others to await the coming of the new sister where they were.

The hotel was at no great distance, and they had not long to wait. The little party presently returned, and Rupert led proudly up to his mother one of the most beautiful, graceful, and altogether bewitching young creatures she had ever seen.

"Mother, this is your new daughter; Juanita, our mother," he said, and they embraced with warmth of affection.

"I love you now for my dear son's sake; and all that he tells me you have done for him, and I hope very soon to love you for your own," Mrs. Keith said. "I, too, the same for my Rupert's sake," the girl-wife answered in liquid tones, and pure English, only a slight and pretty accent betraying the fact that it was not her native tongue. "I hope you will be my dearest mamma, if so be that you can love a foreigner."

"We will not call or consider you that, dear child," responded Mrs. Keith with feeling, and bestowing another kiss upon the rich red lips; "Rupert tells me you are a Christian, and 'we are all one in Christ Jesus;' no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God … Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone."

"Oh, thanks, then we will love one another very much," said the young bride, tears of joy shining in her beautiful dark eyes. "Now I feel that I shall be very happy in my husband's dear home that he has told me of so many, many times."

"I hope you will," Mildred said, embracing her affectionately in her turn; "I trust we shall become dear sisters to each other. We all want you to feel at home among us."

Annis came next. "I am your youngest sister," she said, bestowing and receiving a kiss; "at least the youngest here."

"I have none other," returned the bride in slightly saddened tones. "My husband," and she turned a look of ineffable affection upon Rupert, "is all I have; father, mother, brother, sister I have none."

"Ah, we must indeed be kind to you, poor lonely dear!" said Mrs. Keith.

But it was growing late, and the travellers were weary with the long journey.

Mr. Keith read a short psalm of praise, every heart echoing the words; they sung the doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," a short prayer of fervent thanksgiving followed, and they separated for the night, Annis full of delight at the thought of how deeply interested Elsie would be in the story she meant to write her of the strange, the wonderful events of this day.

For very joy the parents could not sleep; they lay awake a long while talking of their sons and the new daughter.

"She looks very young," Mr. Keith remarked.

"About eighteen, I should think," said his wife. "Poor lonely dear! we must be very kind to her, especially for what she did for Rupert."

"Yes, as kind as we know how to be," assented Mr. Keith. "I cannot yet quite overcome a feeling of repugnance at the thought of a foreigner as a daughter-in-law; but I trust I shall be able to in time; and in the mean while I certainly intend to treat her as well as if I were delighted with the match."

"She is very beautiful," remarked his wife; "what lovely, expressive eyes she has!"

"Very, and they gaze at Rupert as if he were a sort of demigod in her opinion," laughed the father. A happy, gleeful laugh it was.

"Our boy's return is making you young again, Stuart," said his wife.

"Both of us, I hope, my dear," he responded. "But now we must try to sleep, or I fear we shall feel old in the morning."

The whole family were disposed to think well of the new member and make her quite one of themselves, especially for Rupert's sake. Don expressed himself as delighted with her looks and manners, and "How beautiful she is!" "Yes, perfectly lovely," were the sentences exchanged between Mildred and Zillah as they left their father's door that night to go to their own homes; and Flora received quite an enthusiastic description of her charms from the doctor when they met at the breakfast-table the next morning.