He had worked
tremendously hard the first month of daily laboring, and felt he deserved
a reward. Be it said for Jack that the reward of which Aunt Mary had the
bestowing counted for very little with him except in its relation to the
far future. The real goal which he was striving toward, the real laurels
that he craved--Ah! they lay in another direction.
Middle July is a lovely time to get off among the trees and grass, and lie
around in white flannels or white muslins, just as the case may be. It was
too warm to do much else than that, and Heaven knows that Jack desired
nothing better, as long as his goddess smiled upon him.
It was curious about his goddess. She seemed to grow more beautiful every
time that he saw her. Perhaps it was her native air that gave her that
charming flush; perhaps it was the joy of being at home again; perhaps it
was--no, he didn't dare to hope that. Not yet. Not even with all that she
had done for him fresh in his memory. The humility of true love was so
heavy on his heart that his very dreams were dulled with hopelessness, the
majority of them seeming too vividly dyed in Paradise hues for their
fulfillment in daily life to ever appear possible. But still he was very,
very happy to be there with her--beside her--and to hear her voice and look
into her eyes whenever the trouble some "other people" would leave them
alone together. And she did seem happy, too. And so rejoiced that the tide
of Aunt Mary's wrath had been successfully turned.
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