"And now Grace, my dear, you have heard all; what do you say? When I lose my girls, shall I go back to the old life, or shall I stay? I can't stay unless you say yes, Grace. I am double your age, but I love you very dearly, and will do my best to make you happy. My dear, what do you say?" She looked up at him for the first time, her eyes full of tears.
"Yes!"
CHAPTER XIV.
TRYING TO BE TRUE.
Late that evening, the sleighing party returned in high good spirits—all exhilaration after their long drive through the frosty air. Crescent moon and silver stars spangled the deep Canadian sky, glittering coldly bright in the hard white snow, as they jingled merrily up to the door.
"Oh, what a night!" Kate cried. "It is profanation to go indoors."
"It is frostbitten noses to stay out," answered Reginald. "Moonlight is very well in its place; but I want my dinner."
The sleighing party had had one dinner that day, but were quite ready for another. They had stopped at noon at a country inn, and fared sumptuously on fried ham and eggs and sour Canadian bread, and then had gone off rambling up the hills and into the woods.
How it happened, no one but Reginald Stanford ever knew; but it did happen that Kate was walking beside Jules La Touche up a steep, snowy hill, and Reginald was by Rose's side in a dim, gloomy forest-path. Rose had no objection. She walked beside him, looking very pretty, in a black hat with long white plume and little white veil. They had walked on without speaking until her foolish heart was fluttering, and she could stand it no longer. She stopped short in the woodland aisle, through which the pale March sunshine sifted, and looked up at him for the first time.