David White was again amongst the scenes of his boyhood; but he looked upon them merely as the passing traveler--with an idle curiosity. Change had been more busy than he expected, yet nothing around him served to awaken emotion. Not even when he stood upon the little eminence, and on almost the very spot where he had stood ten years agone, to bid a final adieu to home, and then to pass on to ruin, did he seem to remember, save by a faint and sickly smile, half-sneering in its expression. Yet, had he seen it when environed by other circumstances, perhaps his heart might have been touched--but now it was feelingless.
Arrived at the old homestead, he knocked loudly at the door--but no one answering the call, he lifted the latch and entered the apartment. A large hickory fire was blazing on the hearth, casting a ruddy glare upon the floor, and radiating a pleasant heat throughout the room. Upon a worsted hearth-rug reclined a large gray cat, which he thought the very same he had kicked across the room on the evening of his departure, and which started up at his approach, and took refuge beneath the bed. Finding that no one was conscious of his presence, he flung off his dark overcoat, and laying it on a little pine table by the window, drew a large rocking-chair from its nook in the corner, and seating himself by the hearth, began very complacently to contemplate the ornaments upon the mantle-piece. But soon growing tired of this employment, he left his seat and crossed over to some pictures that hung against the opposite wall. At this moment a door opened to his left, and turning, he beheld Mary entering the apartment, her cheeks rosier than ever with recent exercise.
"Good evening to you, my pretty lass," he observed in his blandest tones, and slightly bowing as she drew back in surprise at his sudden appearance. "A widow was once the occupant of this dwelling--the Widow White she was usually called; is she still living, and a resident here? and if so, will you be so kind as to inform her of my presence."
Mary replied briefly in the affirmative, and hastened out to call her mother from an out-house, a new building which had lately been erected to subserve the two-fold purpose of kitchen and dairy, where they both had been busily engaged at the time of his arrival, while he sauntered familiarly to his seat by the fire, and commenced drumming a tune upon the head-board of the mantle-piece. In a few moments the widow made her appearance, and politely requested her guest to be seated.