‘Papa,’ she said after a pause, ‘has some day come?’
‘Yes, darling.’
‘Really and truly?’
‘Yes, darling. Some day has come at last, little one.’
Sunshine and laughter, mirth and joy, instead of misery and despair, gloom and smoke. Eastwood again two months later, and high revels are being held, for is it not little Nelly’s birthday! The blue sky, flecked with little white clouds, smiles overhead, and the birds are making merry in the trees. Niobe still stands in the centre of the lawn, as ready to keep a secret as ever, and saying nothing either of the future or the past.
A pattering throng of little ones are trying to play at tennis, and Eleanor and her husband are watching them with amused eyes. Eleanor looks very sweet and fair to-day, with the light of happiness in her eyes; and there is an expression of peace on her face, as she leans upon her husband’s chair, which is good and pleasant to see. Mr Bates is looking on at the group with meditative looks, speculating, no doubt, upon marriage settlements, which these little chatterers will want some day. Jolly Mr Carver is in the midst of a group of little ones, making himself an object of ridicule and contempt on account of his lack of knowledge touching the mysteries of ‘hunt the slipper.’ ‘Fancy an old gentleman like that knowing nothing of the game!’—an opinion which one golden-haired fairy tenders him without hesitation, and to which he listens with becoming humility and contriteness. Noble-hearted Felix has established a court, where he is doing his best to emulate the wonders of the eastern storytellers, and, to judge from the rapt attention of his audience and the extreme roundness of their eyes, his imagination is by no means faulty. Lying full length on the grass, watching the various groups, is Mr Slimm. There is a depth of sadness in his eyes to-day, for he is thinking of another home—that was—thousands of miles away, and the echo of other voices than these rings in his ears.
‘I did hope,’ he said, rising up, ‘that I should spend my old age with my own children; but I suppose it was not to be.’
‘Do not think of that now,’ Eleanor said with womanly tenderness.
‘Perhaps it is selfish,’ he replied, with a great heave of his chest. ‘It is all for the best, and I have my happiness in yours. Had I not lost my dear ones, I should never have brought you your joy.’