"Then I'm jolly glad, and oh, Aunt Betty," fresh light dawning on him, "it will mean that I'll have you always too the same as I do now. I think I'm almost as glad as Uncle Tom," and forgetful of his boyish dignity his arms closed round her neck in a rapturous hug, and Betty, as she held him fast, felt no congratulation on her engagement was quite so dear and sweet as his.
* * * * *
The days would have dragged heavily after Jack's departure but for the new great happiness which filled Betty's heart to overflowing. Tom had taken Jack to school and installed him there, a very good school Tom told her, with a wholesome religious basis, where "Jack will get such teaching as you and his father would wish him to have," Tom wrote, and Betty was content in this, as in all things, to rely upon Tom's judgment.
Months passed by, Jack came for his first holidays full of his school-mates, and, what pleased Betty more, very full of his work.
He was developing rather an extraordinary turn for mathematics and mechanics, and spent most of his recreation time in the workshop attached to his school, intent upon models of various sorts, and Betty rejoiced and sympathised with his hobby. It was all helping to get him ready for his future work.
Meanwhile, as the months ran into years, Betty went on quite quietly and contentedly with her own work—her preparations for her marriage which she now knew not to be far distant. Had not Tom said he would come to fetch her in about two years? The dainty garments she fashioned were finished one by one and laid by in a box which she named her glory box.
"For it is a glory, mother, to be loved by a man like Tom," she said.
"Then my gift shall be the household linen," said Mrs. Treherne, and side by side with the glory box there stood a large chest which received Mrs. Treherne's contributions as they were folded and marked in readiness for Betty's marriage.
And true to his promise when the two years were nearly completed Tom wrote a letter, almost incoherent in its happiness, to tell her he was coming to claim his own.
"I shall bring Jack along with me, for, as you know, his holidays will be due, and the dear boy is looking forward with sober happiness to his Confirmation day. I always promised to be present at it if I were still in the Colony, and the Bishop, I hear, holds one at Wallaroo about the 21st of December. Jack's preparation has been a careful one, and by his letters to me I think his mind is fully made up to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end. He had his choice of being confirmed in the cathedral at Melbourne, when some other lads from his school received the laying on of hands, but he wrote that he would rather wait for the Confirmation in his own little church at home, 'when you and Aunt Betty will be there with me.' I thought it sweet of the boy, but, indeed, my Betty, I think Jack will turn into a boy you will have every cause to be proud of."