t just now it seems as
if it _could_ not be."

"What _I've_ been wanting to see," said Tom, "is young love come up like
a flower and be given its dew and sun and rain--and bloom and bloom its
best."

He drew a big sigh.

"That poor child who lies on the hillside under the pines," he went on,
"Sheba's mother--hers was young love--and it brought tragedy and death.
Delia," his voice was unsteady, "your mother's was young love, and her
heart was broken. No, it's not often well treated. And when you and Sheba
came to me that night with your boy and girl eyes shining with gladness
just because you had met each other, I said to myself, 'By the Lord, here
is what it springs from. Perhaps it may come to them; I wonder if it
will?'"

"You thought it might, even then," Rupert cried.

"Yes, I did," was Tom's answer. "You were young--you were drawn
together--it seemed natural. I used to watch you, and think it over,
making a kind of picture to myself of how it would be if two young things
could meet each other and join hands and wander on among roses until they
reached the gate of life--and it swung open for them and they passed
through and found another paradise."

He stopped a second and turned to look at Rupert's dreamy face with a
smile not all humorous. "I'm a sentimental chap for my size," he added.
"That's what I wanted for Sheba and you--that's what I want. That sort of
thing was left out of my life; but I should like to see it before I'm
done with. Good God! why can't people be _happy_? I want people to be
_happy_."

The boy was trembling.

"Uncle Tom," he said, "Sheba and I are happy to-night."

"Then God have mercy on the soul of the man who would spoil it for you,"
said Big Tom, with actual solemnity. "I'm not that man. You two just go
on being happy; try and make up for what your two mothers had to bear."

Rupert got up from his chair and caught the big hand in his. It was a
boy's action, and he looked particularly like a boy as he did it. "It is
just like you," he broke forth. "I did not know what you would say when I
told you--but I ought to have known you would say something like this.
It's--it's as big as you are, Uncle Tom," ingenuously.

That was his good-night. When he went away Big Tom settled into his chair
again and looked out for some time longer at the bright night. He was
going back to two other nights which lay in the years behind. One was the
night he turned his back on Delisleville and rode