The Really Happy Returns Of This Kind Must Be Exceedingly
Rare.
I am almost surprised to think that I am able to recall
as many as two, but they hardly
Count, as in both instances
the departure or exile from home happens at so early a time of
life that no recollections of the people survived - nothing, in
fact, but a vague mental picture of the place. One was of a
business man I knew in London, who lost his early home in a
village in the Midlands, as a boy of eight or nine years of
age, through the sale of the place by his father, who had
become impoverished. The boy was trained to business in
London, and when a middle-aged man, wishing to retire and
spend the rest of his life in the country, he revisited his
native village for the first time, and dicovered to his joy
that he could buy back the old home. He was, when I last saw
him, very happy in its possession.
The other case I will relate more fully, as it is a very
curious one, and came to my knowledge in a singular way.
At a small station near Eastleigh a man wearing a highly
pleased expression on his face entered the smoking-carriage in
which I was travelling to London. Putting his bag on the
rack, he pulled out his pipe and threw himself back in his
seat with a satisfied air; then, looking at me and catching my
eye, he at once started talking.
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