The beautiful eyes added their plea, and the carriage was ordered back to the hotel to return for them at five.
While sitting in the parlor Lily told her father of the mother's gift in the years gone by, adding: "He is my brother—I can never forsake him;" and the answer had been: "He shall not be forsaken. I am too grateful for what I have received willingly to sever a single thread that binds you to the friends of your past."
Mrs. Hopkins was standing in the door when these words were spoken, but turned away with a pain in her heart and a strange pallor on her usually flushed face.
That evening there was a long consultation in the little upper parlor of the village inn, and Mrs. Gaylord had repeated the plea: "You will let her remain with me until the summer heat is over? I cannot return home now if I would, and it would be insufferable here without her! As soon as the maple leaves shall crimson and the birds go where I cannot follow, I will come with her to Philadelphia and stand between you no more. It will take the intervening weeks to prepare my heart to endure the separation. Certainly you cannot refuse me this!" And the whole matter was given to the daughter for a decision. She whispered it at last in the ear of her doting father, as she hung about his neck while he petted and caressed her: "For Willie's sake, until he is stronger and able to return to Boston I will remain."
"Pretty hard, my darling, but as there is no appeal the subject is of course closed."
"But there is another of whom I have not told you, whose heart will rejoice at this decision," Lily remarked playfully.
"Not a lover I hope," interposed the father.
"Yes—a true lover! One who has helped me in many a trying hour, and whose advice it has always been safe to follow. You need not draw down that military mustache so threateningly, for this 'lover' is no other than 'Crazy Dimis,' who is even now free from the restraints of the 'county house' and is roaming about somewhere. She appeared to us yesterday out of the honeysuckle swamp, and with her usual earnestness exclaimed, as she pointed her long bony finger at me, 'Little fool, kiss and cry, kiss and cry, don't I know? Life is full of 'em; go, love is waiting—get it;
Eyes must weep—and eyes must hunger,
Love must sleep and life must wonder;
don't I know?' And with a loud laugh she darted into the thick shades and life was left to 'wonder.' There is a good deal of common sense in her gibberings, and when three years ago she told me to 'go and make omens' I obeyed, and came to Mrs. Gaylord, whose hands were full of cheering 'omens.'"