TER XX

Wherein Freckles returns to the Limberlost, and Lord O'More Sails for
Ireland Without Him

Freckles' voice ceased, his eyes closed, and his head rolled back from
exhaustion. Later in the day he insisted on seeing Lord and Lady O'More,
but he fainted before the resemblance of another man to him, and gave
all of his friends a terrible fright.

The next morning, the Man of Affairs, with a heart filled with
misgivings, undertook the interview on which Freckles insisted. His
fears were without cause. Freckles was the soul of honor and simplicity.

"Have they been telling you what's come to me?" he asked without even
waiting for a greeting.

"Yes," said the Angel's father.

"Do you think you have the very worst of it clear to your
understanding?"

Under Freckles' earnest eyes the Man of Affairs answered soberly: "I
think I have, Mr. O'More."

That was the first time Freckles heard his name from the lips of
another. One second he lay overcome; the next, tears filled his eyes,
and he reached out his hand. Then the Angel's father understood, and he
clasped that hand and held it in a strong, firm grasp.

"Terence, my boy," he said, "let me do the talking. I came here with
the understanding that you wanted to ask me for my only child. I should
like, at the proper time, to regard her marriage, if she has found the
man she desires to marry, not as losing all I have, but as gaining a man
on whom I can depend to love as a son and to take charge of my affairs
for her when I retire from business. Bend all of your energies toward
rapid recovery, and from this hour understand that my daughter and my
home are yours."

"You're not forgetting this?"

Freckles lifted his right arm.

"Terence, I'm sorrier than I have words to express about that," said
the Man of Affairs. "It's a damnable pity! But if it's for me to choose
whether I give all I have left in this world to a man lacking a hand, or
to one of these gambling, tippling, immoral spendthrifts of today, with
both hands and feet off their souls, and a rotten spot in the core, I
choose you; and it seems that my daughter does the same. Put what is
left you of that right arm to the best uses you can in this world, and
never again mention or feel that it is defective so long as you live.
Good day, sir!"

"One minute more," said Freckles. "Yesterday the Angel was telling me
that there was money coming to me from two sources. She said that me
grandmother had left me fa