CHAPTER LXXII. AFTER MANY TEARS.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 110, 11 July 1885, Page 4

CHAPTER LXXII. AFTER MANY TEARS.

" Orb ax patience ! the idea of you coming to talk to me now !" cries Miss Dorothy, indignantly. "Go right straight away !" : Into the big, airy culinary domain of the Costellos the afternoon sunlight is slanting. Deep in the mysteries of cake-making is Miss Vernell. A blue giagham apron en velopes her. There is a emudge of flour on her nose. " Oh, by the way," says the captain suddenly. " You remember Ciaflin, don't you?" Mies Dorothy stops short in turning the handle of the sifter. " Do I ?" she ejaculates, emphatically, as she looks upward with a dolorous shake of the head. " I should say so !" 11 He is dead." " The good Lord bless us 1" And she sits down promptly to digest the startling news. " Apoplexy !" asserts the captain, concisely. "Always looked that way, you know. Went off in a fit this morning. He had just been arrested for his attack on Owen, in the St. Pierre, at Philadelphia." " Dear, dear !" And then she beats the sugar and butter together, and stirs in the yolks. " That girl — what was her name ?— Grimes's wife, you know?" "Guila." " Yes. I saw her walking with the old man on Wabash Avenue to-day. " Miss Dorothy measures four teaspoonfuls of baking powder into the flour. " They have a very cosy home. I was over there last night. He will leave her all his morey, I suppose. They seem very much attached to each other. He says he can forgive his son all his brutality to him, because of the daughter he has given him." For a while there is silence. " Do you remember the night of frolic at Seth Martin's ?" Did she ? "Yes." The tone might have been kept on ice for a week, so cold is it. " And do you remember my catching you on the stairs and kissing you V "No." "What?" " You didn't do anything of the sort !" " Oh, Dolly !" in shocked reproach. " I hadn't much courage to say all that was in my heart, so I waited till I caught you alone in the dark. I said, * Dolly, do you care for me, or somebody else ? and you said ' Somebody else. ' That settled it. " " Oh !" Such a panting, surprised dismayed little gasp 1 She stops abruptly in her task of measuring frosting sugar and wheels around. "Was that you!" " Of course it was I." Her rosy old face grows white as paper. She fairly gaßps. He rises, is beside her in a second. Lower the raisins cannot lie. " You thought— " he begins. The sorrow of a life-time is written in the countenance lifted to his. "You spoke so low I thought it was Elwan Fisher." He falls back, still staring at her. " Thunderation !" he at last says, slowly. " And the coat !" flushing hotly, " was so rough, and — " " I recollect. I was going out, and had put on Elwan 'B rough great-coat. I could not find my own. I was hoarse as a raven that night, too. And you never cared for him ?" She shakes her head. There are tears in the blue eyes. Her mouth quivers like that of a grieved child. " And you did care a tiny bit for me, Dolly ?" She cannot answer. " If I were to ask you the same question now 1" he says. He has her in his arms and will not let her go. " Oh, the cake, Terry !" " Darn the cake !" cries Terry. "The children are coming !" Darn— bless the children ! Dolly, you're just aa fair and sweet tome today as you were thirty years ago. Bessie and Owen are deserting me. Will you come and take care of me? Or— or is all the old feeling dead?" His cheery voice grows unconsciously very wistful. For answer she looks up at him with brimming blissful eyes, and slips her plump armß around his neck.