The country will never forget that home-coming. It was on a brilliant day toward the end of July. The whole country side was present to bid Lady Arleigh welcome--the tenants, servants, dependents, friends; children strewed flowers in her path, flags and banners waved in the sunlit air, there was a long procession with bands of music, there were evergreen arches with "Welcome Home" in monster letters.
It was difficult to tell who was cheered most heartily--the fair young wife whose beauty won all hearts, the noble husband, or the gallant earl whose pride and delight in his daughter were so great. Lord Arleigh said a few words in response to this splendid reception--and he was not ashamed of His own inability to finish what he had intended to say.
There had never been such a home-coming within one's memory The old house was filled with guests, all the élite of the county were there. There was a grand dinner, followed by a grand ball, and there was feasting for the tenantry--everything that could be thought of for the amusement of the vast crowd.
On that evening, while the festivities were at their height, Lord Arleigh and his lovely young wife stole away from their guests and went up to the picture-gallery. The broad, silvery moonbeams fell on the spot where they had once endured such cruel anguish. The fire seemed to have paled in the rubies round the white neck of Titian's gorgeous beauty. Lord Arleigh clasped his wife in his arms, and then he placed her at some little distance from himself, where the silvery moonlight fell on the fair, lovely profile, on the golden head, on the superb dress of rich white silk and on the gleaming diamonds.
"My darling," he said, "you are thousand times lovelier than even Titian's beauty here! Do you remember all we suffered in this spot?'
"I can never forget it," she replied.
"But you must forget it--it is for that I have brought you hither. This is the pleasantest nook in our house, and I want you to have pleasant associations with it. Where we suffered hear me say----" He paused.
"What is it?" she asked, quietly.
He threw his arms round her, and drew her to his breast.
"Hear me say this, my darling--that I love you with all my heart; that I will so love you, truthfully and faithfully, until death; and that I thank Heaven for the sweetest and best of all blessings, the gift of a good, pure, and loving wife."