"Good-night, sir," said Mrs. Farquharson, and handed him a parcel. "Would you please to slip these glasses into your greatcoat pocket: two of the jelly, and two of the marmalade. Here are the recipes, written on this paper; Genevieve has copied them out very plain and large. That Mrs. Burbage can read them—with her spectacles."
XII
Two happy, eventful years passed.
One evening, as they sat in the long library, John happened to mention Rosemary Sussex,—and the old parsonage, where his boyhood had been spent, untenanted now—in disrepair. Sir Peter asked a casual question or two. For the rest of the evening he schemed in silence.
Shortly thereafter his mysterious absences began. He required an earlier breakfast on certain days; and John and Phyllis sometimes dined alone.
The new parsonage at Rosemary is nearer the church than the old,—but the old parsonage has more land, and its garden slopes gently downward to the little river, slipping murmurously away to the sea.
So long as Sir Peter tried to keep part of his plan a secret from the vestry, he had one failure after another for his pains. Time after time he returned on the early evening train to London, growling into his white mustache. They would not say no, and they did not say yes; he made no progress. But when he pledged a discreet vestryman to confidence, and told him he sought to buy the old parsonage for the son of its former occupant, the Reverend Hugh Landless, and for his wife, the ways were smoothed at once. A morning came, at last, when he could tell them he had a surprise in store for them, and could place the title-deed in Phyllis's hands.
"It is my belated wedding-gift," said Sir Peter.
Phyllis will never forget her first glimpse of the gray old house. As the motor-car neared the curve in the road which discloses the view John knew and loved so well, he said to her:—