“Oh, oh! I wish you joy. An excellent girl! There it is for you—the house, Tom; you and Mary shall go into it as soon as I have seen the back of MacSweeny and his Bella, and have had it whitewashed. And—hang it! Tom, here—come round to my study, and I’ll give you a cheque for ten pounds towards the furnishing.”
“I thank you, sir; I thank you with all my heart.”
“No need of thanks, Tom! Bless my soul, when a master has a trustworthy, honest servant, it is he is to be counted lucky; and unless he is an ass he will keep him. There—come round to the study.”
And now nearly two years have passed. And this time we see a little party coming out of the church porch. As I live! it is Tom with Mary—no longer Mauduit, but Mountstephen. But they are not alone; there is a baby in a long white robe being brought forth—a babe that had been carried into church to be christened.
As Mary stood in the autumn sunlight outside the porch, she touched Tom’s arm, and said—
“Let us go to little Bessie’s grave.”
And they went, and the baby was taken there also, over the drooping grass, wet with autumn rains.
“The poor little Christmas tree,” said Mary, “although a Tree of Death, lives. See—how hearty it appears!”