When she was presented to Gladys, she folded her closely in her arms.
“My dear,” she said, with a thrill of tenderness in her tones that moved the young wife strangely, “I hope we shall be very good friends, for, although Geoffrey is not my own son, I want to regard you both as my children!”
Tears sprang into Gladys’ eyes.
She lifted her face and kissed the lovely one bending above her.
“I am sure I shall love you very, very dearly,” she said.
And she did. A tender friendship was begun during that visit, which grew stronger and more devoted with every year, and when, at length, two little twin girls were born to Gladys, she named one Alice and the other Estelle.
“For our two mothers,” she said to Geoffrey, with a fond smile.
Colonel Mapleson was very proud of his Annie’s boy, but his happiness would never be quite complete, he said, until there could be perfect harmony between his two sons. He hoped that time would bring even that to pass, for Everet had shown great remorse over the deception that he had practiced upon Gladys, and he finally made an humble, though manly, confession to her, and entreated her pardon for the injury he had done her and her husband.
But it was not until Geoffrey was called to the death-bed of his father, three years after his marriage, that they really became friends.
The making of Colonel Mapleson’s will brought it about, for he consulted his sons about the matter. Geoffrey refused absolutely to be named in it, except simply to receive an affectionate remembrance from his father, and this attitude excited Everet’s wonder.