“Oh, it is Philip, my son!”—Page [377].
Two minutes later the girl had pushed open the door of the mystery-room, and was trying to pull Philip in with her, but that gentleman, on seeing that strangers were present, had stepped back.
“No, no, you must come in,” cried the girl in happy excitement. The young man, seeing the determination on his companion’s face, somewhat puzzled, silently followed her into the room. And then Nathalie swirled him about so that he faced Mr. Banker, crying, “Mr. Banker, this is Philip de Brie Renwick!” And then, without waiting for that gentleman to acknowledge the introduction, she took Philip’s hand and led him towards Mrs. Renwick, who, as she saw the young man approaching, tremblingly arose, and, with clasped hands, cried, “Oh, it is Philip, my son!”
“No it is not Philip, your son,” quickly answered the young man, who had instantly divined who the old lady was, “but Philip’s son, your grandson, Philip de Brie Renwick.”
The next moment Philip was holding the old lady in his arms, while he quietly tried to soothe her sobs, as she wept in happy joy on his breast. As her sobs subsided somewhat, Philip said gently, “Mother Mine,”—it used to be his father’s pet name for his mother,—“here is the ring you gave father when at college.” He drew the seal ring from his finger and held it up before his grandmother, who, with one look at it, cried, “Yes, grandson, I know he has gone, for he promised me—” there was a quiver in her voice—“that the ring should never be removed until—” she drew a deep breath that threatened to turn into a sob—“until he was no more. But he has given me—you, his son. Oh, my dear boy, my own grandson!”
Nathalie sat by her little sewing-table under the trees, gazing off at her grand old friends, the purple-misted mountains. It had seemed hard to do anything, this her last day at Seven Pillars, but gaze at the lofty heights that stood forth so calm and beautiful in their mystical splendor on this gloriously White Mountain day. But she must read over that letter to see if it was all right, so, in soft, low tone she read slowly,
“Dear Helen:
“I have such good news to tell you that I can hardly write,—for, oh, Helen! the little old lady who lived in the red house is Mrs. Renwick, and Philip de Brie, the British soldier whom we found up in the cabin on the mountain, is her grandson! And I have won the prize. No, of course, it is not really a prize, but the good-will and affectionate regard of Aunt Mary, because—well—I made her happy by selecting her son’s Bible as the most valuable thing in her house. And now I have dandy news to tell. She is going to send me to college. I have just lived in a dream ever since I heard the good news. Yes, and I have one hundred dollars for my very own, to do just as I like with—no restrictions, reparations, or indemnities, but just for wee little me. I think that blessed sum was given to me, because the boys, when told I had won the prize, could not understand anything so vague as going to college, but they did finger that crisp bank-note with eager, curious little fingers when I showed it to them. Sometimes I feel a little guilty, for really Cynthia’s selection, a Van Dyke painting, was the most valuable from a certain point of view.