terruption thus made in
his speech, which was altogether lost in the tumult of delight which
followed his son's appearance. But as a matter of fact he was as much
delighted as any one, and proud as man could be of his pretty little
wife and his splendid boy. He took "the little beggar," as he called
him, in his arms, and kissed the mother again, soothing and laughing at
her in the tender, kindly, fatherly way which had won Lucy.

"It is you who have got the seat," he said; "I vote that you go and sit
in it, Lady Randolph. You are a born legislator, and your son is a
favourite of the public, whereas I am only an old fogey."

"Oh, Tom!" Lucy said, lifting her simple eyes to his with a mist of
happiness in them. She was accustomed to his nonsense. She never said
anything more than "Oh, Tom!" and indeed it was not very long since she
had given up the title and ceased to say "Oh, Sir Tom!" which seemed
somehow to come more natural. It was what she had said when he came
suddenly to see her in the midst of her early embarrassments and
troubles; when the cry of relief and delight with which she turned to
him, uttering in her surprise that title of familiarity, "Oh, Sir Tom!"
had signified first to her middle-aged hero, with the most flattering
simplicity and completeness, that he had won the girl's pure and
inexperienced heart.

There was no happier evening in their lives than this, when, after all
the commotion, threatenings of the ecstatic crowd to take the horses
from their carriage, and other follies, they got off at last together
and drove home through roads that wound among the autumn fields, on some
of which the golden sheaves were still standing in the sunshine. Sir Tom
held Lucy's hand in his own. He had told her a dozen times over that he
owed it all to her.

"You have made me rich, and you have made me happy," he said, "though I
am old enough to be your father, and you are only a little girl. If
there is any good to come out of me, it will all be to your credit,
Lucy. They say in story books that a man should be ashamed to own so
much to his wife, but I am not the least ashamed."

"Oh, Tom!" she said, "how can you talk so much nonsense," with a laugh,
and the tears in her eyes.

"I always did talk nonsense," he said; "that was why you got to like me.
But this is excellent sense and quite true. And that little beggar; I am
owing you for him, too. There is no end to my indebtedness. When they
put the return in t