"'I feel that I am happier than I know,'" quotes he, softly, folding her closely to his heart.
So peace is restored, and presently, forsaking the pats of butter and the dairy, they wander forth into the open air, to catch the last mild breezes that belong to the dying day.
CHAPTER XII.
HOW GEOFFREY TELLS HOME SECRETS, AND HOW MONA COMMENTS THEREON—HOW DEATH STALKS RAMPANT IN THEIR PATH—AND HOW, THOUGH GEOFFREY DECLINES TO "RUN AWAY," HE STILL "LIVES TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY."
"And you really mustn't think us such very big people," says Geoffrey, in a deprecating tone, "because we are any thing but that, and, in fact,"—with a sharp contraction of his brow that betokens inward grief,—"there is rather a cloud over us just now."
"A cloud?" says Mona. And I think in her inmost heart she is rather glad than otherwise that her lover's people are not on the top rung of the ladder.
"Yes,—in a regular hole, you know," says Mr. Rodney. "It is rather a complicated story, but the truth is, my grandfather hated his eldest son—my uncle who went to Australia—like poison, and when dying left all the property—none of which was entailed—to his second son, my father."
"That was a little unfair, wasn't it?" says Mona. "Why didn't he divide it?"
"Well, that's just it," returns he. "But, you see, he didn't. He willed the whole thing to my father. He had a long conversation with my mother the very night before his death, in which he mentioned this will, and where it was locked up, and all about it; yet the curious part of the whole matter is this, that on the morning after his death, when they made search for this will, it was nowhere to be found! Nor have we heard tale or tidings of it ever since Though of the fact that it was duly signed, sealed, and delivered there is no doubt."