“Why, Cyril Henshaw!—and you, with your music! As if you could be contented with a woman like that!”
“Oh, I want her to like music, of course,” modified Cyril; “but I don't care to have her MAKE it. Billy, do you know? You'll laugh, of course, but my picture of a wife is always one thing: a room with a table and a shaded lamp, and a little woman beside it with the light on her hair, and a great, basket of sewing beside her. You see I AM domestic!” he finished a little defiantly.
“I should say you were,” laughed Billy. “And have you found her?—this little woman who is to do nothing but sit and sew in the circle of the shaded lamp?”
“Yes, I've found her, but I'm not at all sure she's found me. That's where I want your help. Oh, I don't mean, of course,” he added, “that she's got to sit under that lamp all the time. It's only that—that I hope she likes that sort of thing.”
“And—does she?”
“Yes; that is, I think she does,” smiled Cyril. “Anyhow, she told me once that—that the things she liked best to do in all the world were to mend stockings and to make puddings.”
Billy sprang to her feet with a little cry. Now, indeed, had Cyril kept his promise and made “many things clear” to her.
“Cyril, come here,” she cried tremulously, leading the way to the open veranda door. The next moment Cyril was looking across the lawn to the little summerhouse in the midst of Billy's rose garden. In full view within the summerhouse sat Marie—sewing.
“Go, Cyril; she's waiting for you,” smiled Billy, mistily. “The light's only the sun, to be sure, and maybe there isn't a whole basket of sewing there. But—SHE'S there!”
“You've—guessed, then!” breathed Cyril.