I said: "Louis, let us wait. Do not look at the dreadful letter now, it will mar this pleasant picture which rests me so, and I have been tired too long. I hope I may never again have to say to myself, 'Emily did it,' or its companion sentence, 'Poor Emily did not do it.' Let me breathe a little first, for I shall be again wrought up."
"Perhaps not," said Louis.
"Oh! I must be, it cannot be avoided, there is a dark passage through which we must pass, but if we go together it will not be so hard."
"As you say, my Emily," and at that moment Clara entered.
"Come in, little mother," said Louis, "come in and seal my title for your royal cousin with a motherly kiss, for she has promised to be my wife—my Emily through time."
And she glided toward us, kissed my forehead tenderly, and then taking a hand of each in one of hers, she turned her eyes upward and said:
"Father, bless my children; they were made for each other. May their lives and love continue, ever as thine, through endless time. Let our hearts be united and thy will be ours," and she knelt on the floor at our feet, her head resting in my lap, and her hand in Louis', whose face was radiant with the thoughts which sought expression in his features. I marvelled, as I looked on his beauty, that plain Emily Minot could have become so dear to him.
The thought of father's fear, too, came over me, and while we were thus in thoughtful silence, the old corner clock gave warning of the supper hour being near, and I said:
"The supper I must see to, Louis."
He smiled and said: