"That's just the way I feel to-night, I haven't been so happy before for years."
"And I hope," said Mr. Clifford, "that you will have many happy days and nights in the future."
"And I hope so too," said Joe, shaking hands with Paul and Belle as they rose to go.
Mr. Clifford accompanied Belle to her door, and as they parted she said,
"This is a glorious work in which it is our privilege to clasp hands."
"It is and I hope," but as the words rose to his lips, he looked into the face of Belle, and it was so radiant with intelligent tenderness and joy, that she seemed to him almost like a glorified saint, a being too precious high and good for common household uses, and so the remainder of the sentence died upon his lips and he held his peace.
Chapter XV
"I have resolved to dissolve partnership with Charles," said Augustine
Romaine to his wife, the next morning after his son's return from the
Champaign supper at John Anderson's.
"Oh! no you are not in earnest, are you? You seem suddenly to have lost all patience with Charlie."
"Yes I have, and I have made up my mind that I am not going to let him hang like a millstone on our business. No, if he will go down, I am determined he shall not drag me down with him. See what a hurt it would be to us, to have it said, 'Don't trust your case with the Romaine's for the Junior member of that firm is a confirmed drunkard.'"
"Well, Augustine you ought to know best, but it seems like casting him off, to dissolve partnership with him."