“I have loved you all the time, and I have only waited for that,” said Robert.
Later on Robert and Ellen joined Fanny and the others. It was scarcely the place to make an announcement. After a few words of greeting the young couple walked off together, and left the Brewsters and Tennys and Mrs. Zelotes standing on the outskirts of the crowd watching the fireworks. Granville Joy stood near them. He had looked at Robert and Ellen with a white face, then he turned again towards the fireworks with a gentle, heroic expression. He caught up Amabel that she might see the set piece which was just being put up. “Now you can see, Sissy,” he said.
Eva looked away from the fireworks after the retreating pair, then meaningly at Fanny and Andrew. “That's settled,” said she.
Andrew's face quivered a little, and took on something of the same look which Granville Joy's wore. All love is at the expense of love, and calls for heroes.
“It'll be a great thing for her,” said Fanny, in his ear; “it'll be a splendid thing for her, you know that, Andrew.”
Andrew gazed after the nodding roses on Ellen's hat vanishing towards the right. Another rocket shot up, and the people cried out, and watched the shower of stars with breathless enjoyment. Andrew saw their upturned faces, in which for the while toil and trial were blotted out by that delight in beauty and innocent pleasure of the passing moment which is, for human souls, akin to the refreshing showers for flowers of spring; and to him, since his own vision was made clear by his happiness, came a mighty realization of it all, which was beyond it all. Another rocket described a wonderful golden curve of grace, then a red light lit all the watching people. Andrew looked for Ellen and Robert, and saw the girl's beautiful face turning backward over her lover's shoulder. All his life Andrew had been a reader of the Bible, as had his father and mother before him. To-day, ever since he had heard of his good fortune, his mind had dwelt upon certain verses of Ecclesiastes. Now he quoted from them. “Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which He hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity, for that is thy portion in this life and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun.”
Ellen saw her father, and smiled and nodded, then she and her lover passed out of sight. Another rocket trailed its golden parabola along the sky, and dropped with stars; there was an ineffably sweet strain from the orchestra; the illuminated oaks tossed silver and golden boughs in a gust of fragrant wind. Andrew quoted again from the old King of Wisdom—“I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor, and that was my portion of labor.” Then Andrew thought of the hard winter which had passed, as all hard things must pass, of the toilsome lives of those beside him, of all the work which they had done with their poor, knotted hands, of the tracks which they had worn on the earth towards their graves, with their weary feet, and suddenly he seemed to grasp a new and further meaning for that verse of Ecclesiastes.
He seemed to see that labor is not alone for itself, not for what it accomplishes of the tasks of the world, not for its equivalent in silver and gold, not even for the end of human happiness and love, but for the growth in character of the laborer.
“That is the portion of labor,” he said. He spoke in a strained, solemn voice, as he had done before. Nobody heard him except his wife and mother. His mother gave a sidewise glance at him, then she folded her cape tightly around her and stared at the fireworks, but Fanny put her hand through his arm and leaned her cheek against his shoulder.
THE END