On a verandah in sunny Virginia, Agatha Beck sits quietly working, and crooning some old song in sheer content and peace of heart. Presently she lifts her head as she hears a step. That smile with which she greets her husband shows that she is happy in her new life. Gilead Beck is in white, with a broad straw hat, because it is in hot September. In his hand he has a letter.
"Good news, wife; good news," he says. "Jack and Phillis are coming here to-day, and will stay till Monday. Will be here almost as soon as the note. Baby coming, too."
"Of course, Gilead," says Agatha, smiling superior. "As if the dear girl would go anywhere without her little Philip. And six weeks old to-morrow."
(Everybody who has appreciated how very far from clever Jack Dunquerque was will be prepared to hear that he committed an enormous etymological blunder in the baptism of his boy, whom he named Philip, in the firm belief that Philip was the masculine form of Phillis.)
"Here they come! Here they are!"
Jack comes rattling up to the house in his American trap, jumps out, throws the reins to the boy, and hands out his wife with the child. Kisses and greetings.
Phillis seems at first, unchanged, except perhaps that the air of Virginia has made her sweet delicacy of features more delicate. Yet look again, and you find that she is changed. She was a child when we saw her first; then we saw her grow into a maiden; she is a wife and a mother now.
She whispers her husband.
"All right, Phil, dear.—Beck, you've got to shut your eyes for just one minute. No, turn your back so. Now you may look."
Phillis has hung round the neck of her unconscious baby, by a golden chain, the Golden Butterfly. It seems as strong and vigorous as ever; and as it lies upon the child's white dress, it looks as if it were poised for a moment's rest, but ready for flight.