第144章

The pen lingers fondly in my hand, and yet it is little, very little, that I have left to say.The Purple Volume lies open by my side, with the stories ranged together in it in the order in which they were read.My son has learned to prize them already as the faithful friends who served him at his utmost need.I have only to wind off the little thread of narrative on which they are all strung together before the volume is closed and our anxious literary experiment fairly ended.

My son and I had a quiet hour together on that happy night before we retired to rest.The little love-plot invented in George's interests now required one last stroke of diplomacy to complete it before we all threw off our masks and assumed our true characters for the future.When my son and I parted for the night, we had planned the necessary stratagem for taking our lovely guest by surprise as soon as she was out of her bed in the morning.

Shortly after seven o'clock I sent a message to Jessie by her maid, informing her that a good night's rest had done wonders for me, and that I expected to see her in my study at half past seven, as we had arranged the evening before.As soon as her answer, promising to be punctual to the appointment, had reached me, I took George into my study--left him in my place to plead his own cause--and stole away, five minutes before the half hour, to join my brothers in the breakfast-room.

Although the sense of my own happiness disposed me to take the brightest view of my son's chances, I must nevertheless acknowledge that some nervous anxieties still fluttered about my heart while the slow minutes of suspense were counting themselves out in the breakfast-room.I had as little attention to spare for Owen's quiet prognostications of success as for Morgan's pitiless sarcasms on love, courtship, and matrimony.A quarter of an hour elapsed--then twenty minutes.The hand moved on, and the clock pointed to five minutes to eight, before I heard the study door open, and before the sound of rapidly-advancing footsteps warned me that George was coming into the room.

His beaming face told the good news before a word could be spoken on either side.The excess of his happiness literally and truly deprived him of speech.He stood eagerly looking at us all three, with outstretched hands and glistening eyes.

"Have I folded up my surplice forever," asked Owen, "or am I to wear it once again, George, in your service?""Answer this question first," interposed Morgan, with a look of grim anxiety."Have you actually taken your young woman off my hands, or have you not?"No direct answer followed either question.George's feelings had been too deeply stirred to allow him to return jest for jest at a moment's notice.

"Oh, father, how can I thank you!" he said."And you! and you!"he added, looking at Owen and Morgan gratefully.

"You must thank Chance as well as thank us," I replied, speaking as lightly as my heart would let me, to encourage him."The advantage of numbers in our little love-plot was all on our side.

Remember, George, we were three to one."

While I was speaking the breakfast-room door opened noiselessly, and showed us Jessie standing on the threshold, uncertain whether to join us or to run back to her own room.Her bright complexion heightened to a deep glow; the tears just rising in her eyes, and not yet falling from them; her delicate lips trembling a little, as if they were still shyly conscious of other lips that had pressed them but a few minutes since; her attitude irresolutely graceful; her hair just disturbed enough over her forehead and her cheeks to add to the charm of them--she stood before us, the loveliest living picture of youth, and tenderness, and virgin love that eyes ever looked on.George and I both advanced together to meet her at the door.But the good, grateful girl had heard from my son the true story of all that I had done, and hoped, and suffered for the last ten days, and showed charmingly how she felt it by turning at once to _me_.

"May I stop at the Glen Tower a little longer?" she asked, simply.

"If you think you can get through your evenings, my love," Ianswered."'But surely you forget that the Purple Volume is closed, and that the stories have all come to an end?"She clasped her arms round my neck, and laid her cheek fondly against mine.

"How you must have suffered yesterday!" she whispered, softly.

"And how happy I am to-day!"

The tears gathered in her eyes and dropped over her cheeks as she raised her head to look at me affectionately when I said those words.I gently unclasped her arms and led her to George.

"So you really did love him, then, after all," I whispered, "though you were too sly to let me discover it?"A smile broke out among the tears as her eyes wandered away from mine and stole a look at my son.The clock struck the hour, and the servant came in with breakfast.A little domestic interruption of this kind was all that was wanted to put us at our ease.We drew round the table cheerfully, and set the Queen of Hearts at the head of it, in the character of mistress of the house already.

End