“Father,” he said, on arriving there and seeking him out, “how spruce you look; that is your best suit. Are you going to pay a visit?”
“I believe not, this evening; my other clothes were soiled while we were fishing.” Strictly true, but not all the truth.
“The deacon across the way came home rather muddy, they say. What luck did you have? Did it rain while you were out? There was not a cloud to be seen in New York.”
The father felt it would be useless to evade the question, and related the whole story, bearing kindly the good-natured comments of his son, between whom and himself there was a feeling of friendship as well as of affection.
“And now, father,” Harry began, after the recital was over, “and now how are you going to make up? You will have to make the first step, because you were not in the wrong.”
“Or, more truly, because my son loves the daughter of the person who has ill-used me. Are you not angry at my being left to walk home this hot day?”
“I should be, if that wagon had not come along; everything depends on that wagon. You know it was much pleasanter than riding with an angry man.”
“But then the dust; my clothes are ruined; a new suit will diminish your patrimony, which is not enormous.”
“Then I’ll make you a present of a splendid suit of black on my wedding day. I am rich, at least in expectation, being a partner and no longer a clerk.”
“To tell the truth,” continued the father, dropping the tone of badinage, “I did feel ashamed of myself, and was arranging a little plan of reconciliation, when our servant girl brought word that Mr. Goodlow had forbidden her drawing water from the well.”