Then hand in hand down through the shrubbery and rose lawns went Creggan and Matty. Ah!—
"There's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream".
Creggan felt almost too happy to speak. But he did speak at last, and from all I know he told the old, old, but ever new tale.
"Now tell me, Matty," he said after this, "how your father is. You have said my mother is well."
"Yes, and dear old father too. But he is much in London now."
"And Willie?"
"Oh, that is why Daddy is in London. Willie, you know, stood for the borough of Blankham, and was duly elected. Weren't we all so happy just? And I've been to the strangers' gallery myself, and saw Willie in his place. And really he looked by far the nicest there. I only wonder that—"
She paused.
"That what, Matty?"
"That when he rose to make a speech they coughed him down."