And Mr. Jack laughed, but he grew red, too,—and then he told it all,—that it was just the story of "The Princess and the Pauper," and that he, David, had been the one, as it happened, to do part of their courting for them.
And how David had laughed then, and how he had fairly hugged himself for joy! And when next he had picked up his violin, what a beautiful, beautiful song he had found about it in the vibrant strings!
It was this same song, as it chanced, that he was playing in his room that Saturday afternoon when the letter from Simeon Holly's long-lost son John came to the Holly farmhouse.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Simeon Holly stood, with the letter in his hand.
"Ellen, we've got a letter from—John," he said. That Simeon Holly spoke of it at all showed how very far along HIS unfamiliar way he had come since the last letter from John had arrived.
"From—John? Oh, Simeon! From John?"
"Yes."
Simeon sat down and tried to hide the shaking of his hand as he ran the point of his knife under the flap of the envelope. "We'll see what—he says." And to hear him, one might have thought that letters from John were everyday occurrences.
DEAR FATHER: Twice before I have written [ran the letter], and received no answer. But I'm going to make one more effort for forgiveness. May I not come to you this Christmas? I have a little boy of my own now, and my heart aches for you. I know how I should feel, should he, in years to come, do as I did.
I'll not deceive you—I have not given up my art. You told me once to choose between you and it—and I chose, I suppose; at least, I ran away. Yet in the face of all that, I ask you again, may I not come to you at Christmas? I want you, father, and I want mother. And I want you to see my boy.