Ah me, how happy we were! The second honeymoon, like the second wedding-day, was miles better than the first. We married for love, if two people ever did, not having fifty pounds between us, but my old bridegroom was a truer lover than my young one. He said the same of his old bride. We were like travellers that have climbed to a noble mountain-top and sit down to rest and survey the arduous road by which they came—all rosy in the bloom of sunset—and the poor things still struggling up, not seeing what they head for. I never had such a rest in my life before, and we had never, in all our twenty-five years of dear companionship, been at such perfect peace together. There was only one little cloud, and that passed in a moment. Tom said—it was a mere thoughtless jest, for he did not mean to be unkind—that our divine tranquillity was due to there being no person near for me to be jealous of. I ought to have laughed at such an obviously absurd remark, but I am dreadfully sensitive to anything like injustice, and was foolish enough to feel hurt that he could say such a thing, even in fun. I jealous! I may have my faults—nobody is perfect in this world—but at least I cannot be justly accused of condescending to petty ones of that sort.
CHAPTER IX.
GRANDMAMMA.
"Good-morning, Grandmamma!"
I was in my kitchen after breakfast, seeing about the dinner—calmly slicing French beans, because it was Monday morning and Jane was helping the washwoman—when I was suddenly accosted in this extraordinary way. With a jump that might have caused me to cut my fingers, I turned my head, and there in the doorway stood my son-in-law, Edmund Juke, panting from his bicycle, and grinning idiotically, as if he had said something very funny. By what he had said, and by the expression of his face, and by seeing him miles away from his consulting-room at that hour of the day, I knew, of course, what had happened. My heart was in my mouth.
"What—what—you don't say—not really?" I gasped, scattering the beans, cut and uncut, together about the floor as I sprang to meet him. "Why, it isn't nearly time yet!"
"Oh yes, it is," said he. "Everything is all right. The finest boy you ever saw, and she doing as well as possible. I would not let any one but myself bring you the good news, Mater dear"—and here he kissed me, more affectionately than usual—"ill as I could spare the time. I knew you'd be easier in your mind, too——"
"But I am not easy in my mind," I broke in, excessively concerned about my child, and beginning to see that I had not been fairly treated in the matter. "I am quite sure it is premature, whatever you may say. Phyllis distinctly gave me to understand that it was a month off, at least. Otherwise should I be here?"
"It is an easy thing to make mistakes about, as you know. I can assure you there is nothing wrong in any way. You must allow a medical man—two medical men, for Errington attended her—to be the judge of that," said he, with the airs a young doctor gives himself when he has begun to make a name.