She was, as Aline said, “a dear old lady,” sweet of face, yet stately, though now she looked careworn too; and rising I bowed respectfully, as, acting under one of those sudden impulses which are sometimes better than judgment, I said:
“I hope you will believe that no one regrets the changes more than I do, and it is only trusting in your kindness that I venture to look for a welcome here. There cannot be many who would so kindly receive one who even against his will has been indirectly connected with your troubles. Besides, I have been abusing your generosity further by trying to persuade Grace to desert you, and, strangest of all, I ask you to help me.”
Grace blushed, and her aunt sat silent for a while.
“I am glad you told me,” she then answered quietly, “for I have been thinking what she ought to do. I wondered now and then that my niece did not ask me, and I am going to tell my thoughts to both of you. There is a will extant leaving her this property, with a portion to me, but it will be a long struggle to free the land from its creditors, and my poor brother may live as he is for years. He has been mercifully spared all further anxiety, and I hope that he will. I am old, and my day has long gone by. Grace is young, with the world before her; and it is neither right nor necessary that she should put away all hope of happiness indefinitely. There is only one time 378 when the joy of life is more real than its sorrows. With kinsman Lyle’s counsel, and Foster to work the land, I can hold the Manor and care for my brother, and for both to remain here would be a useless sacrifice. So if you love her, as I believe you do, it is right that you should enjoy together what is sent you. Grace should go to you.”
I had passed my younger days among a homely people, and had been taught little except what I learned in the silence of the mountains and on the wide prairie, and yet I think it was without awkwardness that I bent over Miss Carrington’s hand. Speech would hardly have expressed the gratitude and respect I felt, while I recognize now that the motive of the action was in her and not in me. Then I turned to her niece and waited with longing in my eyes until Grace, who had changed to her softest mood and was now only a blushing girl, said simply:
“You have made it easy, Aunt. Ralph, I will come.”
“That is right,” said Miss Carrington. “Ralph, you have waited patiently, and I can trust you to be kind to her.” Then she smiled upon us as she added: “If not, I take my brother’s place, and you shall answer for it. There is still a Carrington at the Manor holding authority. And so, to turn to the practical, if either of you can consider such prosaic things as tea, it is growing cold already, and it is a pity to waste the Carrington tea.”
The tea was not wasted. We are only creatures of flesh and blood, thankful, the wiser among us, for the transitory glimmer of romance that brightens our work-a-day lot, and gives some much-needed strength to grapple with it, and I had ridden far after a night spent in the open and a hard morning’s work. So I accepted what was offered, and found it delicious to rest in that pretty room, where the last of the sunlight sparkled on the silver and lit up the sweet face of the lady who beamed upon us. Again 379 it seemed almost too good to be true, and hard to believe, that victory had crowned the struggle, while even as I balanced the dainty China cup it reminded me of the battered kettle from which we filled the blackened cans in a British Columbian camp. There, instead of embroidered curtains, were festoons of cedar sprays, biting cold and acrid wood-smoke in place of warmth and artistic luxury, and I knew that I had been favored greatly—for though many strive, the victory is to the few. Still, from out of the shadows of the somber firs, I seemed to hear our partner who lay among the boulders say: “The long, long road has a turning, and there is rest at last.”
Before I left the Manor late that night all was settled, for when I pressed for an early conclusion Grace, yielding, said: “I am not afraid of poverty, Ralph; and if it comes we will lighten it by each bearing half. So we will take the risk of the harvest together, for if I share in your prosperity I must also take my share in the hardship.”
I did not get home to Fairmead until the next day, for I nodded in the saddle until I could not see the way, and several times nearly fell out of it, and when the tired horse stopped on a bluff I found a couch in withered fern and slept there soundly, to waken long after sunrise, wet with dew. That, however, was a trifling matter on the Western prairie, because the man who loves small comforts has no business there, and after the events of the previous day discomfort was nothing to me. Dreams seldom trouble the toiler in that land; and when I stood up refreshed under the early sunlight, and memory returned, the world seemed filled with light and beauty to reflect my own gladness. Ormond’s horse was cropping the grasses not far away, and when I caught him the very birch leaves rustled joyfully under their tender shimmering green as we rode over the bluff, while once out on the prairie a flight of sand-hill 380 cranes came up from the south, calling to one another, dazzling blurs of whiteness against the blue, and even their hoarse cry seemed to ring with triumph.