At thought of that happy sight, her bravery broke down. She wept heartily and long.
John sat still, leaning over the front of his desk. By his sigh, deep and glad, one could tell what a load was lifted off the father's heart at the prospect of his son's return.
"The liners are only a month in sailing; but this is a barque most likely, which takes longer time. Love, show me the date of the boy's letter."
She looked for it herself. It was in JANUARY!
The sudden fall from certainty to uncertainty—the wild clutch at that which hardly seemed a real joy until seen fading down to a mere hope, a chance, a possibility—who has not known all this?
I remember how we all stood, mute and panic-struck, in the dark little counting-house. I remember seeing Louise, with her children in the door-way, trying to hush their laughing, and whispering to them something about "poor Uncle Guy."
John was the first to grasp the unspoken dread, and show that it was less than at first appeared.
"We ought to have had this letter two months ago; this shows how often delays occur—we ought not to be surprised or uneasy at anything. Guy does not say when the ship was to sail—she may be on her voyage still. If he had but given the name of her owners! But I can write to Lloyd's and find out everything. Cheer up, mother. Please God, you shall have that wandering, heedless boy of yours back before long."
He replaced the letters in their enclosure—held a general consultation, into which he threw a passing gleam of faint gaiety, as to whether being ours we had a right to burn them, or whether having passed through the post-office they were not the writer's but the owner's property, and Guy could claim them, with all their useless news, on his arrival in England. This was finally decided, and the mother, with faint smile, declared that nobody should touch them; she would put them under lock and key "till Guy came home."
Then she took her husband's arm; and the rest of us followed them as they walked slowly up the hill to Beechwood.