"Dear Aunt Ann, I'm all right!" Captain Basset replied, kissing her.
"Oh, Paul, you can say that?" she whispered brokenly, the ever-ready tears filling her eyes.
"Yes, and feel it, too," he answered her, "so there's no need to cry. I thought you'd be so happy to-night."
"So I am, so I am! You mustn't mind my crying—I can't help it!"
With an effort the old lady overcame her emotion, and released her nephew from her embrace. Then May and Donald shook hands with him; after which Warner came forward, and respectfully but firmly said his master must go straight to his own room and rest after his journey.
"Yes, yes!" Mr. Basset agreed; "we must not forget he is still an invalid."
But that Captain Basset stoutly declared he was not, at the same time admitting he was very tired.
"I've given you your own old room, Paul," Miss Basset told him, "and the little room next to it has been turned into a sitting-room for you. We want to make you so comfortable here that you will never want to leave us any more!"
After that Warner led his master upstairs. Captain Basset did not appear downstairs again that night, but later he sent for Josephine to come to him. He had had his supper, and was resting in a comfortable easy chair by the open window of his sitting-room when his little daughter joined him. She took a chair at his feet, and leaned her head against his knees, whilst they talked in low, confidential tones, first of matters affecting themselves alone, then of the various members of the household and the kindness and consideration they had showed to Josephine during the time she had been at the Glen.
"Surely I smell roses," Captain Basset remarked by and by; "there must be some in the room, I am sure, or is the scent coming in the window?"