should have liked to see Uncle Dick’s wonderful house, with the real swords an’ armour, in the Land of Heart’s Delight - some day, you know.”
“And so you shall,” cried Lady Warburton, and she actually stooped to kiss him, and then Dorothy, rather ‘pecky’ kisses, perhaps, but very genuine kisses notwithstanding.
“Richard,” she said, giving me her hand, “we shall come down to your wonderful house - all three of us next week, so be prepared - now be off - both of you.”
“Then you forgive me, Aunt?” asked Lisbeth, hesitating.
“Well, I don’t quite know yet, Lisbeth; but, my dear, I’ll tell you something I have never mentioned to a living soul but you; if I had acted forty years ago as you did to-day, I should have been a very different creature to the cross-grained old woman you think me. There - there’s a kiss, but as for forgiving you - that is quite another matter; I must have time to think it all over. Good-bye, my dear; and, Richard, fill her life with happiness, to make up for mine, if you can. Children, bid good-bye to your Auntie - and Uncle Dick!”
“You won’t forget the sword with the ‘deadly point,’ will you, Uncle Dick?”
“I won’t forget, my Imp!” Hereupon he tried to smile, but his trembling lips refused, and snatching his band from mine he turned away; as for Dorothy, she was sobbing into the fur of the fluffy kitten.
Then I helped Lisbeth aboard The Joyful Hope, loving her the more for the tears that gleamed beneath her long lashes, and ‘casting loose,’ we glided out into the stream.
There they stood, the two children, with the white-haired figure between them, Dorothy holding up the round- eyed “Louise” for a parting glimpse, and the Imp flourishing his cutlass, until a bend of the river hid them from view.
So Lisbeth and I sailed on together through the golden morning to “The Land of Heart’s Delight.”
