When she went to bid her uncle good-night, he drew her to him very tenderly. "So you are really glad to be at home again, my child," he said, stroking her hair.
"Very, very glad," was the reply, and the dark eyes shone with tears.
"You love the old place, then?"
"Oh yes, I do; but it wouldn't be the same without you." And she rubbed her cheek against his.
"And you love your old uncle in spite of all his mistakes and queer ways?"
"I love you better than any one else in the whole world," she said simply.
He kissed her very tenderly, and then put her away from him with a sigh. "Go, my child, sleep well; to-morrow is a new day, and begins a new life for you."
"Better than any one else in the whole world," he repeated to himself when Marjory had left him. This had been his heart's desire, his scheme from the beginning—that his beloved sister's child should be his, and that he should be her all, and first in her affections; and now had come his punishment for that selfish wish. The child had made this open avowal of her feeling for him on the eve of the very day on which he must renounce her, must give her up to another with a better right than he to that first place in her love. He had done wrong; he had made what amends he could, and the rest was in God's hands. Would this girl, growing sweeter and more lovable year by year, take away her affection from the uncle and give it all to the father? Would she forget the old man and all his care for her? Then he thought of the honest eyes as they had looked into his, clear and steadfast. Surely he had caught a glimpse of the loving, faithful heart within; surely that heart would prove large enough for love of both. He could no longer expect to be first, but surely he was wronging the child and all that he knew of her by the mere suggestion that she would change towards him, and the memory of her look and her caress comforted him.
Marjory's fifteenth birthday had come at last, and she stood in her mother's room.