"Poor devil thinks he's struck the patrol wagon!" he laughed. "Nothing like water to sober up on!" He put out his foot in a certain way he had learned in Japan; the intruder staggered and fell with a loud splash into the rain pool that had formed beside the platform. "Drive on!" said Tom Lee. "He's all right! Dr. Ross's, please!" It was a silent drive. Tom, full of his own thoughts, did not care to talk to Flanagan's boy or any other boy; his thoughts flew ahead on bright wings. Yet still his eyes took note through the dusk of rain of familiar objects. The full moon was behind the clouds, and mid-June evenings are never very dark. Here was the Street, empty and silent: who was night-watchman now, he wondered? What pranks he and Bobby Chanter used to play on big Andy Doolan! Bobby was a good sort. Tom hoped he was here still Ah! was that Cheeseman's? "Just wait, Uncle Ivory! I'll be down to-morrow, sure pop! What price molasses peppermints?" Up the hill now; ah! there was the Common! Tom's heart was beating fast. Those lights, straight across, were hers. Ah! here was his own house, dark and shuttered. Poor mother! dearest mother! she would be glad he was coming home, even if she was not here to welcome him. She loved Kitty like her own daughter. She knew the hope of his heart; it was her own, too, she told him so the night before she went away. The sweet Lady would be pleased, too: the lovely dark-lily lady, his second mother. Everybody would be pleased, he thought; if only Kitty herself could put up with a brown, wrinkled, carved-up anatomy like himself. "Kitty! Kitty, do you hear? I am coming!" The carriage stopped. The silent figure on the front seat swung lightly to the ground: the door was opened. A trembling voice spoke. "Will your Grace step out, or shall I bring a foot-stool? Tom! _Tom! don't_! not in the street, my dear! my dear!" CHAPTER XXIII HASTE TO THE WEDDING! Well! that is really all. Tom had come home: those four little words hold the rest of Kitty Ross's story. "The Duke of Lee Would married be To a gentlewoman of high quality." And "How happy would that gentlewoman be To be blessed with the Duke's good company!" But--the refrain begins with "Marry!" Will you hear about the wedding? I came on for it, of course: I would have come ten times as far. Of course, too, if Tom had had his way, the way of his first masculine dash for possession, he and Kitty would have been married the morning after his arrival, with Sarepta for sole witness; but Kitty was firm. It would never do: Cyrus's feelings would be hurt. "You don't know, darling, how perfectly angelic everybody has been to me, from the very moment I arrived. Why, Tom,--don't, dear! how _can_ I talk when you--why, all these angel people wanted me to come and _live_ with them!" Kitty very large-eyed with affectionate gratitude.