"Now that this little family affair has reached a thoroughly satisfactory culmination, I trust that things will again assume their normal appearance. For the past month or so Barbara has been most distraite; uncle has so evidently tried to be cheerful that the effort has been distressing; and you, little Lady Betty, have been racking your precious brains for a scheme to make things better."
"And you, Malcom," she retorted, "have had so much sympathy with us all that wrinkles have really begun to appear on your manly brow." And she put up her hand lightly as if to smooth them away.
"Look out, Betty!" with a curious flash of the eyes, as he seized her hand and held it tightly. "The atmosphere is rather highly charged these days."
Bettina's face slowly flushed as she tried to make some laughing rejoinder, and a strange painful shyness threatened to overtake her when Malcom, with a smile and a steady look into her eyes, set her free.
Meanwhile Margery was saying to her mother:—
"How pleasant it is to have everybody so happy!"
"Yes, dear. Do you know why I am so very happy?" and as Margery shook her head, her mother told her that her Uncle Robert had decided to go home to America, and that never again would he live abroad.
"It is more like a story than truth. Uncle to go home, and Barbara to be his wife! You did not think, did you, mamma, what would come from our year in Italy? Just think! Suppose you had not asked Barbara and Betty to come with us! What then?"
"That is too bewildering a question for you to trouble yourself with, my child. There is no end to that kind of reasoning.
"And," she added gently, "it is not a question that Faith would ask. The only truth is that God was leading me in a way I did not know, and for ends I could not foresee. That which I did from a feeling of pure love for my dear neighbors and friends was destined to bring me the one great blessing I had longed for during many years. Oh! it does seem too good to be true that Robert is so happy, and that he is coming home."