more than sixty years ago had loved me. All was forgotten and forgiven before that.
“‘If you had not appreciated him,’ I said, (but, Elsie, think me not better than I am; it was a hard struggle),—‘if you had not appreciated him, it would have been hard for me ever to forgive you. As it is, you did but love him too well.’
“She kissed me. Elsie, my heart melted and yearned within me. I flung my arms around her and cried for joy. She fondled and caressed me, half scolding. Elsie, we both thought of the day that I had first told her of Thomas Redmayne, and we looked for the last time jealously in each other’s faces. Our love was again as if this had never come between us—nay, even the clearer for this long cloud.
“‘You have children?’ I said at last, I so longed for the face of a Redmayne.
“‘He left me with a son and daughter. The son so like him. Meg, you who knew me so strong and confident, will wonder—I ruined him by my fondness. He is dead now. Oh, Meg! I have known trouble indeed. I was glad when he died! My daughter dead also, and yet she died an old woman, too. Meg, I used to think Death had forgotten me—now, again, he will come all too soon!’
“‘Are there none then?’
“‘Yes; my daughter’s son. I will show you.’
“We crossed the hall. There were my young party standing at the door awaiting me. I never remembered them even then. She turned the handle, and entered softly.
“‘See!’
“I looked. There, leaning back in an arm-chair, reading, was a young man of eight-and-twenty or so. He started and rose.
“‘Thomas,’ she said, ‘Mrs. Margaret Fordyce, a very dear old friend of mine.’
“He came to meet me. He was his grandfather all over. His open, gallant bearing, and all, were his. Even that charming voice and smile, which I thought never to have heard or seen again. Yet it was not the same!—Well, Elsie!”
“Oh, Aunt Margaret! This was—”
“Think of the best man you know.”
Elsie’s eyes glanced to the figure in the chimney corner. And at that moment her father justified his title to be possessor of “the most charming voice and smile.” He opened his eyes and called his daughter to him.
Isabella flew to his side, and throughout that evening looked wondrously into the face which had unconsciously earned such new interest. But the lesson of Mrs. Margaret’s history was not lost upon her.
AN OLD FLEMISH TOWN, AND THE WAY TO IT.
A ROADSIDE SKETCH.
The post-mark of this “bit o’ writin’” will bear the name of an ancient city lying in an out-of-the-way corner of the brave Belgian kingdom. Yet this obscure nook was once a place of European celebrity. Five or six hundred years ago it was as well known to the English as any spot on the globe to which they adventured for trade or pleasure; and at this present time the advent of an Englishman is so rare in the place that, when such an apparition appears, the worthy people collect at their shop-doors to gaze at him, and the little children gather about him with gaping eyes, and examine him from head to foot, with an expression of mixed curiosity and fear.
By the way, what are the marks which betray an Englishman at sight to the juvenile populations