“And Bridgie has been always sweet and cheerful. We have each expected her to be sorry for us in turns, and never once suspected that she needed us to be sorry for her too. Thank you, Bridgie!” said Jack, looking across at her with a loving look which was the sweetest reward which she could possibly have received for the struggles which had been so gallantly concealed.
“It was my greatest comfort to have you all to work and care for when I thought he had—forgotten!” she cried hastily. “And I have loved helping you, Jack! Please speak honestly, dear, let us all speak out honestly. Of course I want to be with Dick, but I want most of all to do what is right—we all do—and the children must come first. You can’t be left alone, Jack, and there is no one else to take my place.”
“Unless—” began Jack slowly. Bridgie looked at him in surprise, and saw the red flush come creeping up from beneath his collar, touch his cheeks, and mount up and up to the roots of his curling hair. “Unless I married myself!” he said breathlessly, and at that Bridgie darted forward and caught him by both hands.
“What? What? What? Jack, what do you mean? Is it Sylvia? Of course it is Sylvia! And does she—Jack, what does it mean? Are you engaged too? Have you been keeping it from me because you thought—”
“We wouldn’t let you think you were in our way; we loved you too much, old girl, so we were quietly waiting until—”
“I came along!” concluded Dick Victor tersely.
The three young people stood staring at each other for a moment, and the tears brimmed over in Bridgie’s eyes, but presently she began to laugh, and the young men joined in with a sense of the happiest relief. Each one had been thinking of the other, and putting personal hopes in the background, and lo, in the simplest, most delightful of fashions, the knot was cut, and each was left free to be happy after his heart’s desire.
“Oh, it’s perfectly, perfectly perfect!” Bridgie cried rapturously. “The boys adore Sylvia, and will be her devoted slaves; she is twice the housekeeper that I am, and she has been so lonely, poor darling, without her parents. Oh, Jack, how nice of you to care for her, and give her a home!”
“That’s what she says!” replied Jack naïvely. “Shall we send for her to join the council? She ought to have her say. I’ll run across—”
“No, no! Send Mary. I want to see her first—I want to see exactly how she looks when she knows she is found out,” Bridgie insisted; so Mary was promptly despatched on her errand, and back came Sylvia, wondering and excited, and not a little mystified by the presence of the tall stranger.