“Now go to grandpapa.” And forgetting his shyness in the glory of success, away he went with eager, faltering steps, and sprang joyfully into the old man’s arms. The door had opened softly and the young mother, pale but smiling, stood on the threshold seeing it all. As the child turned she stooped and held out her arms, and again he crossed the space between them with quick, uncertain steps; and May kissed her father with her child in her arms.
Then, after a whispered word, Marion went out and returned in a little carrying a tiny bundle with trailing white robes, and presented to Mr Dawson another grandson. If she had been at all afraid of him at first, her fear had not outlasted the play with the child, and Mrs Manners saw with mingled surprise and amusement the good understanding between them, and the interest her father allowed to appear in the pretty ways and pleasant words of the girl whom in the old days they had found it best to keep a little out of his sight.
He listened to their lamentations about Jean’s not coming patiently, and answered with a good grace, more questions in ten minutes than ever she had ventured to put to him in as many days.
“She has wonderfully improved since she left Portie,” said he, when Marion had carried away the baby again.
“She was ay a bonny lassie,” said May.
She was not going to put him on his guard against the fascinations of her friend by praising her too earnestly.
“I like her to be here with me when I cannot go out. She is very nice with Georgie.”
That was all she said to him, but she told her husband that night, that Marion, with the help of the “bonny boy,” had made a conquest of her father.