My dream was over, I had been rudely awakened. Not for the sake of hearing "Adolph" murmured all day long in the soft accents of that dulcet voice could I, an English country gentleman, for a moment contemplate allying myself with the made-up widow of a German shopkeeper, however beautiful and attractive her appearance might be in full "war-paint." No, I would go back to my old home and my old ways, and forget the foreign siren who had dazzled me for a while.
We stayed on at Salzbrun until my course of water-drinking was over, and then, after a fortnight's tour through other parts of Germany, I brought my niece home with me to the Manor House.
Emmie had grown very dear to me in all these weeks that we have spent together. I do not think it would be quite fair to ask her parents to let her live with me entirely and be my adopted daughter; but I have been trying on one excuse and another to lengthen out her stay, and fondly hoped the Manor House would be a second home to her, and that at least half her time would in future be spent with me.
But what is the use of planning? My fine schemes were all knocked on the head this morning, in the course of an hour's conversation, and I and my projects are simply nowhere in the new state of things.
I was standing on my doorstep after breakfast, smoking calmly, and at peace with all mankind, when young Fred Willoughby came riding up the drive.
"Hullo, young man," said I, "why are you not after the hounds this morning? You can't have better weather in November, and you won't find any fox in this direction, take my word for it."
"It is rather a dove than a fox that I have come in pursuit of to-day, Mr. Slocombe. Can you give me ten minutes in the study?"
In less than that time he had poured out a fervid declaration of his devotion to my niece, of his parents' approval of his choice, and would I—could I give him any hope that Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Slocombe would ever be persuaded to allow him to marry their daughter? Of course he soon persuaded me. Fred is a thoroughly good fellow, the son of old and tried friends, and can promise his wife a future fairly free from any money anxieties. He is evidently much attached to Emmie, and I believe will make her truly happy. So, by and by, we shall have another wedding, and then I know exactly how it will be in the future. History, they say, repeats itself. So somebody's marriage will inconvenience me; I shall lose my head housekeeper in Emmie. There will be bad times for the garden again next spring, I know there will, and I shall be worried and out of sorts, and shall suffer from bunions, or something else, and then Hunter will send me to Sir Percival Pylle for good advice. I see the whole programme before me, like some dreadful nightmare; but I can be firm upon occasions, and I do solemnly declare that nothing, not even the advice of the most learned and fashionable of physicians, shall ever again induce me to seek for health in the neighborhood of a German mud-bath.
[THE END.]