As he finished, Captain May went to him and gave him a warm, hearty hand-grasp. "That's enough," he said. "Gentlemen, I call you to witness that from this time forth I renounce all claims, except those of love, to her who has been known for the last fifteen years as my daughter Edna May. I am satisfied that this man is her father, and that whatever he has been in the past, he is now worthy to occupy that position towards her. Edna, my girl, you have only got two fathers instead of one, and a brother of whom I think you will live to be very proud besides; your heart holds enough love for all of us, doesn't it, dear?"
Edna's answer was to throw her arms around his neck, and kiss his weather-beaten cheeks again and again. Then, with a smile showing through the tears that still filled her eyes, she went over to Mr. March, whom she no longer doubted was her own father, but of whom she could not help feeling very shy, and half timidly held up her face for him to kiss. The happy father opened his arms and clasped her to his heart, exclaiming, in a broken voice, "God bless you, my daughter! That He has restored you to me is the surest sign of His forgiveness."
Then Frank came to them, saying, "Sister Edna, won't you kiss me too? The thing I have envied Mark most was his having a sister, and now that I have got one of my own, I do believe I am the very happiest boy in the world."
"Sakes alive!" exclaimed good old Uncle Christopher, who had all this time been blowing his nose very loudly with a great red silk hand-kerchief, and occasionally wiping his eyes, "with all this kissing going on, where am I? Grandniece Ruth, come here and kiss your 'Uncle Christmas' directly." Ruth did as she was bid, and the old gentleman continued: "What a country this Floridy is, to be sure. They change March into May, or vicy versy, and each one is as beautiful as the other. Sakes alive! what an old April Fool I was not to think of all this myself when I first saw those two young people together."
Long before this, honest Jan Jansen, who had returned from Tallahassee with Mr. March, but waited to put up the mules, had come into the room, and he was now brought forward and introduced to everybody. Among the Aroostook gentlemen he found an old acquaintance who had met him in New Sweden, and who now told him that, owing to the death of a relative in the old country, a snug little property awaited him, and that a lawyer in Bangor was advertising and searching for him.
Having now spent almost a year with our Wakulla friends, perhaps they are getting tired of us, and we had better leave them for a while, only waiting to draw together the threads of the story, and finish it off neatly.
Edna May March has been installed mistress of the pretty little house that Mr. March and Frank built while the young Elmers were in the North, and she and Ruth receive daily lessons in cooking, sewing, and all sorts of housekeeping from Mrs. Elmer and Aunt Chloe; and the latter says "she's proud to 'still Soufern precep's into deir sweet Norfern heads, bress em!"
The Nancy Bell lay in the St. Mark's River long enough to secure a load of lumber from the Elmer Mill, and then sailed for the North. But she will return, for Captain May has bought a half interest in her from Uncle Christopher, and will hereafter run her regularly between New York and Wakulla.
The new Elmer Mill is nearly finished, and four of the six gentlemen from Aroostook have gone home to get their families, and to buy more machinery with which to erect another saw-mill farther up the river, and they are expected back on the next trip of the Nancy Bell.
Jan has gone to Sweden; but they have had a letter from him saying that he should return soon, and invest his property in Wakulla.