"You must keep quiet, or you will be ill. I cannot have my son ill—not for any girl. Come, sit down—here, beside your mother."
She was obeyed. Looking into her eyes, and seeing no anger there, nothing but grief and love, the young man's right spirit came into him again.
"O mother, mother, forgive me! I am so miserable—so miserable."
He laid his head on her shoulder. She kissed and clasped him close—her boy who never could be wholly hers again, who had learned to love some one else dearer than his mother.
After a while she said, "Father, shake hands with Guy. Tell him that we forgive his being angry with us; that perhaps, some day—"
She stopped, uncertain as to the father's mind, or seeking strength for her own.
"Some day," John continued, "Guy will find out that we can have nothing in the world—except our children's good—so dear to us as their happiness."
Guy looked up, beaming with hope and joy. "O father! O mother! will you, indeed—"
"We will indeed say nothing," the father answered, smiling; "nothing, until to-morrow. Then we will all three talk the matter quietly over, and see what can be done."
Of course I knew to a certainty the conclusion they would come to.