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Father sees!"———and then checking his rapture, burst into tears. Many a vision had Allan Bruce framed to himself of the face and figure of one and all of his children. One, he had been told, was like himself———another the image of its mother———and Lucy, he understood, was a blended likeness of them both. But now he looked upon them with the confused and bewildered joy of parental love, seeking to know and distinguish in the light the seperate objects towards whom it yearned; and not, till they spoke did he know their Christian names. But soon, soon, did the sweet faces of all his children seem, to his eyes, to answer well, each in its different loveliness, to the expression of the voices so long familiar to his heart.
Pleasant, too, no doubt, was that expansion of heart, that followed the sight of so many old friends and acquaintances, all of whom, familiar as he had long been with them in his darkness, one day's light now seemed to bring farther forward in his affection. They came towards him now with brighter satisfaction———and the happines of his own soul gave a kinder expression to their demeanour, and represented them all as a host of human beings rejoicing in the joy of one single brother. Here was a young man, who, when he saw him last, was a little school-boy --here, a man beginning to be bent with toil, and with a thoughtful aspect, who had been own joyous, and laughing fellow-labourers
