The reconciliation which had taken place was a good thing for Margaret. She was inclined to be despondent; Suneva always faced the future with a smile. It was better also that Margaret should talk of Jan, than brood over the subject in her own heart; and nothing interested Suneva like a love-quarrel. If it were between husband and wife, then it was of double importance to her. She was always trying to put sixes and sevens at one. She persuaded Margaret to write without delay to Jan, and to request the Admiralty Office to forward the letter. If it had been her letter she would 295 have written “Haste” and “Important” all over it. She never tired of calculating the possibilities of Jan receiving it by a certain date, and she soon fixed upon another date, when, allowing for all possible detentions, Jan’s next letter might be expected.
But perhaps, most of all, the reconciliation was good for Peter. Nothing keeps a man so young as the companionship of his children and grandchildren. Peter was fond and proud of his daughter, but he delighted in little Jan. The boy, so physically like his father, had many of Peter’s tastes and peculiarities. He loved money, and Peter respected him for loving it. There were two men whom Peter particularly disliked; little Jan disliked them also with all his childish soul, and when he said things about them that Peter did not care to say, the boy’s candor charmed and satisfied him, although he pretended to reprove it.
Jan, too, had a very high temper, and resented, quick as a flash, any wound to his childish self-esteem. Peter was fond of noticing its relationship to his own. One day he said to the boy: “Do that again and I will send thee out of the store.”
“If thou sends me out just once, I will never come in thy store again; no, I will not; never, as long as I live,” was the instant retort. Peter repeated it to Suneva with infinite pride and approval. “No one will put our little Jan out for nothing,” he said.
“Well, then, he is just like thee!” said the politic Suneva; and Peter’s face showed that he considered the resemblance as very complimentary.
CHAPTER XIV.
JAN’S RETURN.
“For them the rod of chastisement flowered.”