The Prodigal Father Part 54

"Is this better than scrubbing the floor of a ward?" he smiled.

"Buying a trousseau is harder work than you realize, Lucas," she answered, with that touch of reproof by which all good women remind man gently but daily that it is her part to suffer, his to misunderstand.

There followed a s.p.a.ce of happy silence, and then she said--

"Didn't I tell you that everything would come right if we waited?"

"Yes," he admitted, "that was one of your good guesses."

She raised her delicate brows.

"Aren't you happy _now_?"

"Good heavens! I should think so."

"Then be more grateful, dear," she smiled.

Rapturously he confessed he had erred, and was even sufficiently in love to think he perceived how.

"I positively must go now," she said in a little, and, despite his protestations, rose.

"Shall we walk?" he asked.

"Haven't you a cab call?"

"But you haven't been out of a hansom all day, and it's only ten minutes--"

"Oh, bother the expense!" she cried. "I believe in being sensibly economical, but not in being _close_."

Again he cheerfully accepted the gentle rebuke as the reproof his inconsistency deserved.

And so off they whirled in a hansom.

At that very same hour, far, far to the northward, the winter sun was struggling in gleams through the pine-tops and falling in patches on the moss. For an instant one patch lit the hat of straw and gentle face of Ellen Berstoun; and though it was but a small patch, it also lit a large tweed cap a few inches higher up. Beneath the cap a voice murmured--

"Ellen!"

No more letters came to her now from India; and no longer she walked alone.

These incidents occurred nearly three years ago. Since then Mr. and Mrs.

Frank Walkingshaw and Mr. and Mrs. Lucas Vernon have grown into comparatively old married couples.

As for the genial and sagacious author of their happiness, the latest report to hand informs the present editor that the name of James Heriot Walkingshaw stands first in the batting averages of a select preparatory school.

THE END