"Oh, I've never believed he bothered himself very much about Jewel," returned Harry lightly. "You make a mountain out of that. All a child needs is a ten acre lot to let off steam in, and she's had it here. He knows you'll keep her out from under foot. Let's accept this pleasure. He probably takes a lot of stock in you after all I told him last night. It's a relief to his pride and everything else that I'm not going to disgrace the name. He wants to do something for you. That's the whole thing in a nutshell; and you let him do it, Julia." In an exuberance of spirits, aided by the fresh, inspiring morning, the speaker took his wife in his arms, as they stood there on the wide veranda, and hugged her heartily.
"Do you think I shall get over my awe of him?" She half laughed, but her tone was sincere. "I'm so unused to people who never smile and seem to be enduring me. Oh, if you were only going to stay, too, Harry, then it would be a vacation indeed!"
"Here, here! Where are your principles? Who's afraid now?"
"But he's so stately and forbidding, and I shall feel such a responsibility of keeping Jewel from troubling him."
Harry laughed again. "She seems entirely capable of paddling her own canoe. She didn't seem troubled by doubts or compunctions in the carriage last night; and up there in the bedroom when she flew at him! How was that for a case of lèse majesté? Gad, at her age I'd sooner have tackled a lighted fuse! What do you suppose it was she whispered to him?"
"I've no idea, and I must say I was curious enough to ask her while I was putting her to bed; but do you know, she wouldn't say!" The mother laughed. "She sidled about,—you know how she does when she is reluctant to speak, and seemed so embarrassed that I have to laugh when I think of it."
"Perhaps it concerned some surprise she has persuaded father to give us."
"No, it couldn't be that, because she answered at last that she'd tell me when she was a young lady."
They both laughed. "Well," said Harry, "she isn't afraid of him so you'd notice it; and you can give her a few pointers so she needn't get in father's way now that she has you again. He has evidently been mighty considerate of the little orphan."
"How good he has been!" returned Julia fervently. "If we could only go home with you, Harry," she added wistfully, "while there's so much good feeling, and before anything happens to alter it!"