A perfectly splendid Jack, in resplendent attire, handsome, beaming, with a big bouquet of violets in his hand!
“For you, Aunt Mary,” he said, and dropped them into her lap, and hugged her fervently. She clung to him with a cling that forgot the immediate past, disinheriting and all. Oh! she was so glad to see him!
The porter approached with a beneficent look.
“Has he taken good care of you, Aunt Mary?” Jack asked, as the man gathered up the things and they started to leave the car.
“Yes, indeed,” Aunt Mary declared.
So Jack gave the porter a dollar.
Then they left the train.
“I was so worried,” Aunt Mary said, as she went along the platform hanging on her nephew’s arm. “I thought you’d met with an accident.”
“I couldn’t get on until the rest got off,” he said, gazing down on her with a smile; “but I was on hand, all right. My, but it’s good to think that you’re here, Aunt Mary! Maybe you think that I don’t appreciate your taking all this trouble for me, but I do, just the same.”
Aunt Mary smiled all over. Everyone who passed them was smiling, too, and that added to the general joy of the atmosphere. Aunt Mary felt proud of Jack, and rejoiced as to herself. Her content with life in general was, for the moment, limitless. She did not stop to dissect the sources of her delight. She was not in a critical mood just then.