“I fear that my petition is a most presumptuous one, sir; but I hope and trust that you will not consider it offensive. If so, I pray you to pardon me.”
“My young friend, on the contrary, your proposal is both flattering and agreeable. I shall gladly and gratefully undertake the task for which circumstances as well as, I hope, college training, have fitted me.”
“I thank you with all my heart, Mr. Campbell. You have made everything smooth and pleasant for us,” heartily responded Ran.
Judy caught the minister’s hand, pressed it between both hers, and so expressed her gratitude.
Later all the details of the engagement were arranged between the minister and his pupils.
On Ran’s pressing entreaty, Mr. Campbell consented to stay and dine with them that day. And it was during his visit that the evening mail brought them foreign letters from Cleve Stuart, with the news of his Uncle John Cleve’s death.
“A good man gone to his rest,” was the comment of the clergyman.
The news of death—even of the death of a stranger whom we only knew by report—always casts a shadow, for a longer or a shorter time, over the circle into which it is brought.
Bright Judy was the first to smile and dispel the cloud.
“And now, Mr. Campbell, it is so well that you have consented to take pity on us, for under present circumstances we could not leave Haymore,” she said.