"Well, do as you like, children. It is never wise for old people to meddle too much in such affairs," he added, as if thinking of his own youth. "Only I wish Constance to go with me now, for I have to meet new conditions, and want her by my side. Afterward I will come back with you if only for a month, for this is now my country, Gilbert, as well as hers. Its streams and slumbering depths," he went on, as he looked across the intervening plain to the great river and the dark forest beyond, "belong to all of us without reference to our place of birth. Nature claims this love and kinship from her children everywhere, but in my case there are other ties, as you know. So do not fear, my children, but that I shall return many times in the days to come to visit you in your home, in the country of my adoption."

Thus it was concluded as we stood holding each other's hands in the shadows of the spreading trees, and it being left to Constance and me, we determined to celebrate our marriage without further delay—not, as you may suppose, in the new house, or in the church, but in the Treasure room of the Dragon, where there were so many reminders of things dear to us all, and now become a part of our lives. When this event that we had so long looked forward to had been consummated, and every hope and longing was thus happily fulfilled, we accompanied Mr. Seymour to England, as he desired. There, as Lady Constance, my sweet wife was received by her people in the most affectionate way possible, and afterward, when they came to know her better, with such striving to keep her among them that I came near abandoning my own country for theirs. For in my case they could not have been more kind had I been an Englishman and a lord, and this, you must know, is the feeling they have for all their descendants beyond the seas, however lightly the latter may prize their love.

In this way, and amid surroundings every way delightful, we prolonged our stay for a year or more, but after a while, and with some sojourn on the continent, came back to our own home, where we stayed. This, though the town faded out after a little, as so many had done before, to reappear under other names on the banks of the great river. We were content to stay, and soon where the streets had been, meadows and trees took their place, for as the houses were torn down or moved away we acquired the property, and so added it to what we had before. Of the Dragon, it remained as of old, and the little garden Constance had looked after as a girl we kept as it was, and filled always with the flowers she had loved. This part of our domain, the most cherished of all, we left to Setti's tender care, and of the building she made a playhouse for our children, and here they grew to be men and women, all fair and with sweet tempers and gentle ways like their mother. Constance and I often visited the old home, sometimes with the children at the little feasts they spread, but often alone, when we wished to conjure up anew the faces and forms of other days. Thus we lived in the stillness of the country in happiness and contentment of mind, each year adding something to the great love we had borne each other from the first.

* * * * *

Here Mr. Holmes brought his story to a close, and doing so, looked upward and away across the great river, as if recalling the distant period of which he spoke. For some time I sat silent, and then, seeing he had finished, asked, looking at the sweet lady who stood beside him:

"And Constance, sir?"

"You want to know about her?" he asked, smiling, recalled to himself.

"Yes, she most of all."

"Surely, she most of all! There could never be but one Constance—and this is she," he answered, putting his arm about the sweet lady at his side. She, responding with no less love, embraced him with tender affection, and as she might in her youth, on the banks of the great river, beneath the widespreading hawthorns.

THE REGAN PRINTING HOUSE
CHICAGO