"I meant to tell you—at first and then—then I forgot, yes forgot, Allan—because of something of which I wanted to tell you far, far more."
"I know," he said, he put his arms about her and held her closely. "Something that has made me the happiest and proudest man in all the world, beloved."
* * * * *
A winter and a spring had passed and the garden at Homewood was blooming with a loveliness that it had not been able to attain last summer. Old Markabee, bearing the weight of yet one more year on his round shoulders, was snipping at the ivy covered wall.
"A pernicious thing be ivy, sir," he said, "a terribul pernicious thing, eating away the very wall as du support it, tearing it away bit by bit, ruining it, sir, it du—with them terribul little clinging fingers it hev got, workin' and workin' till the old wall be crumbled quite and ready to fall, a most terribul pernicious thing ivy be."
"Yes, yes to be sure, but hush my good man, not—not so loudly if you please——"
Markabee turned contritely, "I bain't gone and woke he wi' my chatter?" he asked.
"No, no, he is still sound asleep."
Sir Josiah rose from the stone bench, he peered under the holland awning over the perambulator.
His reign was but short and presently nurse would come and demand of him, her charge. It was a great favour that she did him, leaving him here in charge of the slumbering infant, there was no one else nurse would trust, but she knew that she might Sir Josiah.