“My father will hear us, and he will not be pleased,” said she going softly away.
But was it not a joyful morning?
“May, are you ready? Come down quickly. I have something that I want you to see.”
“May, I think it is I who have something to see,” said George, as his younger sister came in. One might search the countryside and find no other such brother and sisters as these three. The father looked at them with proud but sorrowful eyes, for their mother was not there to see them.
George was changed, even more than his sisters. He had gone away a lad, and he had come back a man. There was more than the soft brown beard to show that. He had grown taller even, his father thought, he had certainly grown broader and stronger. The colour that used to be as clear red and white as his sisters’ was gone. His face was brown and his eye was bright and steady, and his smile—when it came—was the same sunny smile that his father had so longed for during the sorrowful days of his absence. But it did not come so often as it used to come, and at other times, his face was touched with a gravity new to them all.
But there was no gloom on it, and no trace of any thing that those who loved him would have grieved to see. It was a stronger face now than it had been in the old days, but it was none less a pleasant face, and in a little while they forgot that it had changed. It was George’s face. That was enough.
“It is a man’s face. And he’ll show himself a man yet, and do a man’s share in the work of the world,” said the proud and happy father. And in his heart he acknowledged his son’s right to take his own way and live his own life, even though the way might lie apart from his, and though the life he chose might not be just the life that his father would have chosen for him.
“Your aunt should have been here, Jean. You should have sent for her,” said Mr Dawson in a little.
“I will go and see her,” said George. “I will walk in with you to the town, by and by.”
“But we must have her here, all the same, for a day or two. Ye’ll send for her afterward, Jean.”