Chapter 10

A YEAR elapsed before any tidings of the wanderer came. Then Mrs. Howland received a few lines from him, dated in a Southern city, where he spoke of having just arrived from South America. He had little to say of himself, beyond that he was well; and did not speak of visiting home.

After reading this letter, Mrs. Howland placed it in the hands of her husband, who read it also, and then gave it back without a remark. He checked an involuntary sigh as he did so. Not the slightest reference was made to him by his son; a fact that he did not overlook, and that he did not observe without a sense of disappointment. The long absence of his wayward boy had softened his feelings toward him; and with pain he remembered many acts of harshness that now seemed to have in them too much of the element of severity. At the term of the Court, which was held soon after Andrew went away, the Grand Jury failed to obtain sufficient evidence to justify the finding of a bill against him, and released the security given for his appearance at Court. This fact, with a previous questioning of the policeman by whom Andrew had been arrested, satisfied Mr. Howland that the boy had been unjustly suspected of an intention to commit a crime. But this conviction had come too late. The effects of that unjust accusation had already fallen in sad consequences upon the head of the poor boy; and the father could not force from his mind the painful conviction that he was, mainly, responsible for these consequences.

Another year went by, but during all the time, no further tidings came of Andrew. To his first letter, Mrs. Howland had immediately replied, urging him, by every tender consideration, to return to his home. But she had no means of knowing whether it had ever been received. Upon her the effect of his absence had been, for a time, of the most serious character. For a few weeks after he went away, both body and mind were prostrated; to this succeeded a state of mental depression, which continued so long that her friends began to fear for her reason. Not until after the lapse of a year, when she received the above-mentioned letter from her son, did her mind attain to anything like its former state. The knowledge that he was yet, alive, that he thought of her, and still cherished her memory, gave a new impulse to her fainting spirit, and a quicker motion to the circle of life. There was yet room to hope for him. But, as time went on, there came not back even a faint echo to the voice she had sent after him, her heart failed her again. Yet time, which imparts strength to all in trouble, had done its work for her also. The care and labor that ever attend the mother's position among her children, had bent her thoughts so much away from Andrew, that, while his absence left a constant weight upon her feelings, it did not crush them down as before, into a waveless depression.

The second year of Andrew's absence came to a close; but nothing further was