"To think that in one day we should bid a last farewell to two of our young fellow-exiles, Humility and Jack, both gone home, and for ever from us! Giles liked Jack; Jack stood by him when he needed help. Oh, Father, Father, if it were Giles!" cried Constance. "I know, I know, child," said her father, huskily. "I've been thinking that. I've been thinking that, and more. My son has been headstrong, but never wicked. He is stiffnecked, but hath no evil in his will, except that he resists me. But I have been thinking hard, my Constance. You were right; I would have done well to listen to your pleadings, to your wiser understanding of my boy. I have been hard on him, unjust to him; I should have admitted him to my confidence, given mine to him. I am wrong and humbly I confess it to you, Giles's advocate. When he comes back my boy shall find a better father awaiting him. I wounded him through his very love for me, and well I know how once he loved me." "Oh, Father; dear, good, great Father!" cried Constance, forgetful of all grief. "Only a great man can thus acknowledge a mistake. My dear, dear, beloved Father!" And in her heart she thought perhaps poor Jack had not died in vain if his death helped to show their father how dear Giles was to him, still, and after all. CHAPTER XVI A Gallant Lad Withal There was a gray sky the day after young madcap John Billington was laid to rest in the grave that had been hard to think of as meant for him, dug by the younger colonists. Long rifted clouds lay piled upon one another from the line of one horizon to the other, and the wind blew steadily, keeping close to the ground and whistling around chimneys and rafters in a way that portended a storm driven in from the sea. "I think it's lost-and-lone to-day, Constance," said Damaris, coining her own term for the melancholy that seemed to envelop earth and sky. "I think it's a good day for a story, and I'd like much to sit in your lap in the chimney corner and hear your nicest ones." "Would you, my Cosset? But you said a story at first, and now you say my nicest _ones_! Do you mean one story, or several stories, Damaris?" Constance asked. "I mean one first, and many ones after that, if you could tell them, Constance," said the child. "Mother says we have no time to idle in story-telling, but to-day is so empty and lonesome! I'd like to have a story." "And so you shall, my little sis!" cried Constance gathering Damaris into her arms and dropping into the high-backed chair which Dame Eliza preempted for herself, when she was there; but now she was not at home. "Come, at least the fire is gay! Hark how it snaps and sings! And how gaily red and golden are the flames, and how the great log glows! Shall we play it is a red-coated soldier, fighting the chill for us?" "No, oh, no," shuddered Damaris. "Don't play about fighting and guns!"