“Ah, what a kind heart has this child of our old age, John!” said the old lady, turning proudly and fondly to her husband.
“Yes—yes; a good boy—a good boy,” answered the Chief Justice.
“Ah, Anna, my dear, you will be a happy woman if you live long enough, for you will have a good husband,” she continued, turning to her intended daughter-in-law.
Anna shrugged her shoulders.
“You don’t seem to agree with me, Anna.”
“Oh yes I do, Aunt Lyon, to some extent. I think Alick is really very kind when it amuses him; but I don’t think he would be kind to any living creature when it would bore him to be so. For instance, he would bring me home a present, and be really delighted with my delight in it; but he wouldn’t give up a skating party to take me to a wax-work show if I were to cry myself ill from disappointment.”
“Oh, I suppose you have had a tiff with him; that’s of no consequence at all. ‘The quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love,’” said the old lady, laughing to herself.
But Anna had had no tiff with her betrothed, and her judgment of him was a righteous one.
Mr. Alick soon came rushing in with his arms full of packages, and looking like a railway porter. He set down three large ones on the floor, threw himself into a chair, and exclaimed:
“Now then, mother, send for little Drusilla. It will be fun to watch her eyes when she sees these things.”