"How d'e do, darling? How you are grown! and how well you look! How's
your father? I hadn't anything particular to do, so I thought I'd come
home and see you all, and get some fishing."

And Mary, who had longed to throw her arms round his neck, as of old,
and was restrained by the thought that she was grown a great girl now,
called in her father, and all the household; and after a while the old
Doctor came home, and the fatted calf was killed, and all made merry
over the return of this altogether unrepentant prodigal son, who,
whether from affectation, or from that blunted sensibility which often
comes by continual change and wandering, took all their affection and
delight with the most provoking coolness.

Nevertheless, though his feelings were not "demonstrative," as fine
ladies say now-a-days, he evidently had some left in some corner of
his heart; for after the fatted calf was eaten, and they were all
settled in the Doctor's study, it came out that his carpet-bag
contained little but presents, and those valuable ones--rare minerals
from the Ural for his father; a pair of Circassian pistols for
Mark; and for little Mary, to her astonishment, a Russian malachite
bracelet, at which Mary's eyes opened wide, and old Mark said--

"Pretty fellow you are, to go fooling your money away like that. What
did that gimcrack cost, pray, sir?"

"That is no concern of yours, sir, or mine either; for I didn't pay
for it."

"Oh!" said Mary, doubtingly.