ut her
arms around my mothah an' kiss away all the sorry feelin's."

It was a long time he stood there. The battle between his love and pride
was a hard one. At last he raised his head and saw that the short winter
day was almost over. Without waiting to order his horse he started off
in the falling snow toward the cottage.

CHAPTER X.

A good many forebodings crowded into the Colonel's mind as he walked
hurriedly on. He wondered how he would be received. What if Jack Sherman
had died after all? What if Elizabeth should refuse to see him? A dozen
times before he reached the gate he pictured to himself the probable
scene of their meeting.

He was out of breath and decidedly disturbed in mind when he walked up
the path. As he paused on the porch steps, Lloyd came running around the
house carrying her parrot on a broom. Her hair was blowing around her
rosy face under the Napoleon hat she wore, and she was singing.

The last two hours had made a vast change in her feelings. Her father
had only fainted from exhaustion.

When she came running back from Locust, she was afraid to go in the
house, lest what she dreaded most had happened while she was gone. She
opened the door timidly and peeped in. Her father's eyes were open. Then
she heard him speak. She ran into the room, and, burying her head in her
mother's lap, sobbed out the story of her visit to Locust.

To her great surprise her father began to laugh, and laughed so heartily
as she repeated her saucy speech to her grandfather, that it took the
worst sting out of her disappointment.

All the time the Colonel had been fighting his pride among the memories
of the dim old drawing-room, Lloyd had been playing with Fritz and Polly.

Now as she came suddenly face to face with her grandfather, she dropped
the disgusted bird in the snow, and stood staring at him with startled
eyes. If he had fallen out of the sky she could not have been more
astonished.

"Where is your mother, child?" he asked, trying to speak calmly. With
a backward look, as if she could not believe the evidence of her own
sight, she led the way into the hall.

"Mothah! Mothah!" she called, pushing open the parlour door. "Come heah,
quick!"

The Colonel, taking the hat from his white head, and dropping it on the
floor, took an expectant step forward. There was a slight rustle, and
Elizabeth stood in the doorway. For just a moment they looked into each
other's faces. Then the Colonel held