I wonder if I _were_ as light hearted as Linnet."
"You were as blithe a maiden as ever trod on air," he returned smiling
sadly. "Don't I remember how you used to chase me around that old garden.
When we go back let us try another chase, shall we?"
"We will let Marjorie run and imagine it is I."
"Prudence, if I regain my strength out there, I am coming home to tell
you something, may I?"
"I want you to regain your strength, but I am trembling when I think of
anything to be told. Is it anything--about--"
"Jerome? Yes, it is about him and about my self. It is about our last
interview when we spoke of you. Do you still believe that he is living?"
"Yes, we are living, why should he not be alive?"
"Do yon know how old he would be?"
"He was just twenty years older than I."
"Then he must be sixty-four. That is not young, Prudence, and he had
grown old when I said goodbye to him on the steamer--no, it was not a
steamer, he avoided the publicity, he went in a merchant ship, there was
not even one passenger beside himself. He had a fine constitution and he
knew how to take care of himself; it was the--worry that made him look
old. He was very warm-hearted and lovable."
"Yes," escaped Miss Prudence's lips.
"But he was weak and lead astray--it seems strange that your silver
wedding day might be almost at hand, and that tall boy and girl in front
of you my brother's children to call me Uncle John."
"John," she sobbed, catching her breath.
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