Mr. Burton, senior, came to the lady and said, “Minnie, is this you, who I thought dead so many years? My son has given me a happy surprise this Christmas day.”
Mrs. Spaulding stood as one in a trance. Finally she said, “Sir, how came you to think I was dead?” She spoke sorrowfully.
“Dear lady, or my dear Minnie, (if I may call you so as of old) when I came home from the army my father told me you had sailed in the vessel that sank off the coast of S——, and as none of the crew lived to tell the sad tale, I supposed you suffered the same fate, as I could not get any trace of you in Liverpool.”
“No,” answered the lady, “your father was mistaken in the ship, as we landed safe, and I am among the living, as you see.”
As she extended her hand he grasped it and pressed it to his lips and said, “Mrs. Spaulding, my first and only love, forget the past and let us be friends as of old. My son has doubtless told you of my past life—how I left his mother when he was a babe and I have been a wanderer from my home ever since. I am very sorry. My past conduct does not deserve any kindness from my noble son. He tells me my wife died loving me, who does not deserve the love of any one. I married her because she loved me and I supposed her rich; and thinking you dead, desired to try to be happy with her; but it was not to be. She saw your picture, and it made her angry to think I had loved one before her. She wanted me to burn it. We had a few words about it, and she told me to go and never let her see my face again. I went away. I was going home now to ask her forgiveness when I met my son, he who I left in my old servant Pompey’s arms. As God is my witness, what I tell you is the truth. Will you forgive me, Minnie, and let the past be forgotten?” said Mr. Burton, taking the hand of the lady and looking fondly in her face.
“Paul, can it be that after twenty-five years we are to meet in the presence of our children?” said the lady, sinking on the breast of her old lover.
“Mother and father,” said both the young people, advancing towards them from the parlor, “give us your blessing, and God grant we may all be happy together this ever-to-be-remembered Christmas.”
“What say you, my love,” asked the senior Paul Burton. “God bless you, my children! May the blessing of God ever fall on your pathway and strew it with flowers,” said the father, placing Nettie’s hand in that of his son. “And if your mother will be my wife we will begin our lives anew.”
“One week from today; what say you, Minnie?” said the gentleman.
A letter was written then and two days before New Year’s they started for that place, and when it became known at the house of Paul that he was going to bring a wife home, and had found his father, what a hustle-bustle there was among the servants to make everything look its best. Pompey said, “Paul is coming home wid his fadder and wife, and day shall see what a good ole man and woman Paul left to see to things. Golly, I’s in hopes she’ll be a better wife to him than his mudder was to his fadder.”