“Yes, that's just what he says,” laughed Marie-Celeste; so that Dorothy thought her a trifle hard-hearted. “And now I'll begin over again. 'Dear little Coz, here I am, you see, and I assure you I have kept my promise to the letter, and have come home as soon as ever I could; but home doesn't seem a very cheery sort of place when all your relatives are off on a lark, and on your own brake at that, and you must fain content yourself with the companionship of your valet. He's a fine little valet, however, Marie-Celeste, and he tells me that he has stolen my thunder in a long letter he wrote you from London; so you know all about my going in search of your friend, Mr. Belden, and finding in his place my uncle, Mr. Selden. Well, this letter is just to tell you what I told you once before, you remember, and that is, that you are my good little angel, no matter how bad you may have been for three whole days together,” and to ask you not to forget that there is rather a lonely fellow here at Windsor, who hopes you are having a good time, but who honestly thinks that the sooner you come home the better. Tell Miss Dorothy all about things if you think best, but don't paint me any blacker than you feel you really have to.
“'Yours faithfully,
“'Theodore.'”
“Well, I haven't painted him very black, have I?” said Marie-Celeste complacently; but Dorothy was far too absorbed in her own thoughts to make any answer, and Marie-Celeste looked at her a little curiously, wondering what was going on in her mind.
“Perhaps you'd rather be left to yourself?” she added half mischievously, after a minute or more of unbroken silence.
'Oh, no; you didn't paint him black at all for Dorothy was able instantly to bring her thoughts hack and say what was expected of her.
“This other letter,” explained Marie-Celeste, looking askance at the note in her hand, “is rather spooney; I don't believe I had better read it.”
“Mr. Selden write a spooney letter! that's impossible!” exclaimed Dorothy, who thought 'she knew her man,' as the saying goes; whereupon Marie-Celeste, of course, straightway read the letter in order to prove her premises.
“'Reform Club, London, August 20.
“'They tell me, dear Marie-Celeste (and they means, of course, your Cousin Theodore and Donald), that you are taking a driving tour through the English lakes, and that if I should address a letter to you, care of Miss Dorothy Allyn, no one would be any the wiser; and that's just what I've done, you see, as, for reasons of his own, your Cousin Theodore seems to prefer it. You know already that this same Cousin Theodore has been up here in London several days with me, and as a result we have had many a long talk together; but you do not know, perhaps, that we came to the conclusion that your coming to England this summer had been just the best thing that could have happened to both of us. Likely as not you do not exactly understand how that can be, and it is as well, perhaps, that you should not; only take my word for it, that it is true, and ask no questions. This much, however, I will tell you. Ted said to me one day, 'I can tell you one thing, Uncle Everett, it was a talk I had with that dear child under an apple-tree, down at Nuneham, that made me feel that some people whom I care a great deal for still had faith in me, and it was she who gave me courage by what she told me to go home as fast as ever I could get there and then, Marie-Celeste, what do you suppose I said to him? Well, I just, told him that that same dear child had preached me two blessed sermons—one on the deck of the Majestic and the other exactly where a sermon should be preached, beneath the roof of dear old St. George's, and that what there was left of my life was going to be set in a new key.”