"That brute of a train has been late for a week," said he, "but to-day it comes on time. It is going to be a long, long wait for May. How does papa seem to take it now?"
"Papa is quick to make amends when he has wronged—any one, and now he knows."
"Well, so does Aunt Agnes, Miriam, yet she doesn't approve."
"Well, Aunt Agnes, don't you know—she's different. She's a good deal like other women I know. When she's placed somebody else in a false position, she thinks that person ought to be very sorry for her, and sympathize with her, for having been deceived and misled. She thinks you ought to say how sorry you are."
"How can I say I'm sorry when I'm so glad—all glad?"
"Well, then, there's Cousin Watson, don't you know? He was always her pet. He was brought up by a weak mother and a doting aunt, and she knows you don't approve of him."
"Does she expect a man to approve of one who maligned him as Lowndes maligned me?"
"You should see his earlier letters about you! Why, if I'd known anything of them I would never dared to meet such a paragon."
"And yet, after all, he turned to and painted me black as an imp of Satan. What had I done but good to him? I never took or won a penny of his."
A moment of silence, then the fond eyes looked up.