pa, God bless dear Lucy, God bless dear Jenny, God
bless our dear friends everywhere," he repeated in a resounding voice.

"Oh, you precious lamb!" exclaimed Virginia. "He couldn't bear to hurt
poor mamma, could he?" and she kissed him ecstatically before hastening
to the slumbering Jenny in the adjoining room.

"I like the little scamp," said Susan, when she reported the scene to
John Henry on the way home, "but he manages his mother perfectly.
Already his sense of humour is better developed than hers."

"I can't get over seeing Virginia with children," observed John Henry,
as if the fact of Virginia's motherhood had just become evident to him.
"It suits her, though. She looked happier than I ever saw her--and so,
for that matter, did Aunt Lucy."

"It made me wonder how Mrs. Pendleton had lived away from them for seven
years. Why, you can't imagine what she is--she doesn't seem to have any
life at all until you see her with Virginia's children."

"It's a wonderful thing," said John Henry slowly, "and it taught me a
lot just to look at them. I don't know why, but it seemed to make me
understand how much I care about you, Susan."

"Hadn't you suspected it before?" asked Susan as calmly as he had
spoken. Emotionalism, she knew, she would never find in John Henry's
wooing, and, though she could not have explained the reason of it to
herself, she liked the brusque directness of his courtship. It was part
of that large sincerity of nature which had first attracted her to him.

"Of course, in a way I knew I cared more for you than for anybody
else--but I didn't realize that you were more to me than Virginia had
ever been. I had got so in the habit of thinking I was in love with her
that it came almost as a surprise to me to find that it was over."

"I knew it long ago," said Susan.

"Why didn't you make me see it?"

"Oh, I waited for you to find it out yourself. I was sure that you would
some day."

"Do you think you could ever care for me, Susan?"

A smile quivered on Susan's lips as she looked up at him, but with the
reticence which had always characterized her, she answered simply:

"I think I could, John Henry."

His hand reached down and closed over hers, and in the long look which
they exchanged under the flickering street lamp, she felt suddenly that
perfect security which is usually the growth of happy years. Whatever
the future brought to them, she knew that she could trust John Henry's
love for her.