There is
money enough for whatever you want, and it is all yours. A man with
children like mine is graciously blessed. I have been a fool and wasted
many precious years. I can't bring them back and live them over, but I
can and will live the rest of my life right in God's sight. Can you
still love me in spite of all that is past, children?"

For answer, by common impulse they slipped their arms around him, and he
drew each face down to his and kissed it. The barriers of years were
swept away, and father and children were united by love.

For a long time the little group sat there talking over plans for their
future happiness and drinking in the supremest joy of living.

Then the father spoke abruptly: "There is another matter, children.
When I named you as I did, I thought I was spiting the world. My own
life had been made bitter by just that same thing, and I wanted to get
even; but I only broke your mother's heart and made you both as
miserable as I had been. It isn't too late yet to change that. Drop
those names I gave you and choose for yourselves what you would like to
be called."

They stared at each other, then at him, in dumb amazement. Change their
names! The possibility of having such a privilege granted them had never
occurred to either one before. At length Tabitha spoke:

"If you had told me that once, I would have done it only too quickly;
but now I have learned that if a person is kind and lovable, no one
cares what the name is. Pretty names don't make nice people, and homely
ones don't make them bad, either. I am--beginning--to rather like
'Tabitha' now, and I don't wish to change my name."

"Or I mine," added Tom; and once more the father drew their faces down
to his own and kissed them.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Tabitha at Ivy Hall, by Ruth Alberta Brown

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