"You are so quick," she said, as she put back some of her disheveled hair.
"Dearest," he whispered, "it seems to me as if I had been so slow, so slow, so very slow!"
It was a long time before Captain Asher returned, and when he entered the parlor he found these two still there. They had been sitting by the window, and when they came forward to meet him Dick's arm was around the waist of Olive. The captain looked at them for a moment, and then he gave a shout, and encircled them both in his great arms.
When they were cool enough to sit down and Olive and Dick had ceased trying to persuade the captain that he was not the happiest of the three, Olive said to him: "I have told Dick everything—about the air-gun and all. Of course, he must know it."
"And I have been looking at you," said Dick, putting his hand upon the captain's shoulder, "as the only hero I have ever met. Not only for what you have done, but for what you have refrained from doing."
"Nonsense!" said the captain. "Olive now—"
"Oh! Olive is Olive!" said Dick. And he did not mind in the least that the captain was present.
It was on the next afternoon that the Broadstone carriage stopped at the toll-gate. Mrs. Easterfield sprang out of it, asking for nobody, for she had spied Olive in the arbor.
"It seems to me," she said, as she burst into tears and took the girl into her arms, "it does seem to me as if I were your own mother!"