Every one laughed, and took the hint: the lawyer went back to his work, and Mr. Boniface and Cecil, after a few parting words with the happy servant, recrossed the road to Rowan Tree House. “Oh, father, it is so very good of you,” said Cecil, slipping her arm into his; “I haven’t been so happy for an age!” “And I am happy,” he replied, “that it is such a thing as this which pleases my daughter.” After that there followed a delightful evening of anticipation, and Mrs. Boniface entered into the plan with her whole heart and talked of nursery furniture put away in the loft, and arranged the new nursery in imagination fifty times over—always with improvements. And this made them talk of the past, and she began to tell amusing stories of Roy and Cecil when they were children, and even went back to remembrances of her own nursery life, in which a stern nurse who administered medicine with a forcing spoon figured largely. “I believe,” said the gentle old lady, laughing, “that it was due to that old nurse of mine that I never could bear theological arguments. She began them when we were so young that we took a fatal dislike to them. I can well remember, as a little thing of four years old, sitting on the punishment chair in the nursery when all the others were out at play, and wishing that Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned.” “You all sound very merry,” said Roy, opening the door before the laugh which greeted this story had died away. “Why, how nice and early you are, Roy!” exclaimed Cecil. “Oh! mother has been telling us no end of stories, you ought to have been here to listen to them. And, Roy, we are most likely going to have those little children over the way to live with us till their father is out of prison again.” Roy seemed grave and preoccupied, but Cecil was too happy to notice that, and chattered on contentedly. He scarcely heard her, yet a sense of strong contrast made the home-likeness of the scene specially emphasized to him. He looked at his father leaning back in the great arm-chair, with reading-lamp and papers close by him, but with his eyes fixed on Cecil as she sat on the rug at his feet, the firelight brightening her fair hair; he looked at his mother on the opposite side of the hearth, in the familiar dress which she almost always wore—black silk with soft white lace about the neck and bodice, and a pretty white lace cap. She was busy with her netting, but every now and then glanced up at him. “You are tired to-night, Roy,” she said, when Cecil’s story had come to an end. “Just a little,” he owned. “Such a curious thing happened to me. It was a good thing you caught sight of me at Hyde Park Corner and stopped to ask about the trial, Cecil, for otherwise it would never have come about. Who do you think I met just as you drove on?” “I can’t guess,” said Cecil, rising from her place on the hearth-rug as the gong sounded for supper. “One of our Norwegian friends,” said Roy. “Frithiof Falck.”