Daddy was the daddy of old times, before the dark clouds of doubt and despair had gathered around him and he had drifted about, the derelict Mr. Wirt; while Miss Stella, veiled in soft mists of tulle, looked what she had been, to him, what she would ever be to him—his guiding star. Polly, who was the only bridesmaid (for so Marraine would have it), carried a basket of flowers as big as herself; Father Tom said the Nuptial Mass; and Freddy stood at daddy’s side, the very happiest of “best men.” And Dan who was off on his summer vacation at Killykinick, came down in the “Sary Ann,” with Captain Jeb slicked up for the occasion in real “store clothes.” And there was a wonderful wedding feast at the Forester home, with a cake three stories high, and three tables full of wedding presents; Captain Carleton’s diamond star, that he would send, shining with dazzling light among the rest.
And, then, such a house-warming followed as surpassed Freddy’s wildest dreams with a real fire leaping on the hearth, with the rugs and curtains and cushions just right; for Miss Stella (or Marraine as she chose that Freddy should call her,—for, as she said, “Your own dear mother is in heaven, my boy”),—Miss Stella had picked them all out herself. And Father Tom beamed happily on his reconstructed family; and the Fathers and Brothers and boys from St. Andrew’s dropped in without ceremony; for Marraine had welcome for all, now that she was a fixed star in her real home and her real place.
Though dear Aunt Winnie has dropped at least ten years of her life, and old Neb’s whale oil has done more for her rheumatism than all the store medicines she ever tried; though more joy and comfort has come into these sunset years than she ever dared hope, she still sits on her little porch in the evening, with a look in her old eyes that tells she is dreaming.
“What do you see, Aunt Win?” asked Dan one evening as after a tough pull up the Hill of Knowledge, he bounded up the Mulligan stairs to drop at her feet and lay his head in her lap.
“Sure it’s not for an old woman to spake, Danny dear!” she answered again as of old. “It’s too great, too high. What was it that holy saint, Father Mack, said to you, alanna? Sometimes I forget the words.”
“That it would be a hard climb for me against winds and storms,” said Dan. “And, golly, it will! I am finding that out myself, Aunt Win.”
“Go on, lad! There was more,—there was more,” said the old woman, eagerly.
After a moment’s pause, Dan added, in a voice that had grown low and reverent:
“That God was calling me to His own. And, Aunt Win,—Aunt Win” (there was a new light in the blue eyes uplifted to her face), “I am finding that out, too.”
But it is a long way to the starlit heights of Aunt Winnie’s dream,—a long, hard way, as Danny knows. We leave him climbing sturdily on over its rocky steeps and sunlit stretches, but finding many a sunlit resting place on the way. Brightest of all these to Danny is Killykinick, where he goes every summer to spend a happy holiday,—to boat, to swim, to fish, to be “matey” again with the two old men, who look for his coming as the joy of the year.