ing to put in your pocket, and
another for Jolland; but he need not know it comes from me." And when
Dick opened his hand afterwards, he found two half-sovereigns in it.

So the cab rolled away, and Paul went up to the drawing-room, where,
although he certainly allowed the fireworks on the balcony and in the
garden to languish forgotten on their sticks, he led all the other
revels up to an advanced hour with jovial _abandon_ quite worthy of
Dick, and none of his little guests ever suspected the change of host.

When it was all over, and the sleepy children had driven off, Paul sat
down in an easy chair by the bright fire which sparkled frostily in his
bedroom, to think gratefully over all the events of the day--events
which were beginning already to take an unreal and fantastic shape.

Bitterly as he had suffered, and in spite of the just anger and thirst
for revenge with which he had returned, I am glad to say he did not
regret the spirit of mildness that had stayed his hand when his hour of
triumph came.

His experiences, unpleasant as they had been, had had their advantages:
they had drawn him and his family closer together.

In his daughter Barbara, as she wished him good-night (knowing nothing,
of course, of the escape), he had suddenly become aware of a girlish
freshness and grace he had never looked for or cared to see before. Roly
after this, too, had a claim upon him he could never wish to forget, and
even with the graceless Dick there was a warmer and more natural feeling
on both sides--a strange result, no doubt, of such unfilial behaviour,
but so it was.

Mr. Bultitude would never after this consider his family as a set of
troublesome and thankless incumbrances; thanks to Dick's offices during
the interregnum, they would henceforth throw off their reserve and
constraint in their father's presence, and in so doing, open his eyes to
qualities of which he had hitherto been in contented ignorance.

* * * * *

It would be pleasanter perhaps to take leave of Mr. Bultitude thus, as
he sits by his bedroom fire in the first flush of supreme and unalloyed
content.

But I feel almost bound to point out a fact which few will find any
difficulty in accepting, namely, that, although the wrong had been
retrieved without scandal or exposure, for which Paul could not be too
thankful, there were many consequences which could not but survive it.

Neither father nor son found himself ex