And what do you think I heard her say?
_"Oh, lover, lover, this is your son--and I am his happy mother!"_
Billy came in glowing from his walk in the sharp air, and I can't tell
you how good it seemed to feel his cold cheek against my cheek, and his
warm lips on mine. We were a rapturous trio in front of the library
fire, and there we were joined presently by the rapturous trio from
above stairs. They treated Billy and me as if we were a pair of guardian
angels. Then we had dinner together, with Mandy and William in the
background beaming.
And that night I told Billy all about it. "Isn't it beautiful, Billy?
They are going to live on the old Davenant place, and it is to be their
home."
Everybody calls on us now. You see, Lady Crusoe's family is older than
any of the others, and then there's her husband's money. And I shine in
her reflected light, for our friendship, as she says, is founded on a
rock. But Billy says it is founded on a wreck. Yet while he jokes about
it, I know that he is proud of his friendship with Robin's father. And
when the spring comes, we are to take old Tid and our blessed Junior and
our family effects to an adorable cottage with a garden on all four
sides of it and set well back from the road.
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