'You blessed child!' cried Pauline, with the tears in her eyes; 'you are our Angel of Patience. Don't ever call yourself useless, dear, you are the centre of gravity for Stephen and me.' When the twilight fell she sat in her favourite position near the open door, looking up at the rose-tinted clouds, as she made Polly laugh with merry descriptions of her different visits. Suddenly she grew still, for a sun-browned, bearded man had crossed the threshold, and thrown a paper into her lap, saying huskily:-- 'There's the mortgage, Pauline, to make a bonfire of. I've come home to stay.' Before he had finished, her arms were around his neck, and Polly heard her cry softly, with the break of a great gladness in her voice:-- 'Lemuel! Why, Lemuel!' _Chapter XI_ PURE GOLD Richard Everidge sat in his handsome library one evening in early summer, reading a letter from his only child, Muriel, the joy of his heart:-- 'MY DEAREST PAPA,--We are stopping now in the quaintest little place, a veritable Sleepy Hollow, like its name, where Rip Van Winkle might have snoozed away for centuries without fear of being disturbed. 'As I advised you in my last, we were on our way to Farningham, when something went wrong with the engine, and we had to stop here for repairs, and mamma was so charmed with this little village that she decided to stay awhile; she says it seems to suit her better than any place she has seen; poor mamma, I wish I could find some place where she would be satisfied. To me all the world seems so beautiful, but she says no one knows how to sympathise with her peculiar organisation. 'That was Saturday. On Sunday morning I went to the little church, mamma was too tired, and now comes the best part of the story. I was looking round watching the different families, all in their Sunday best, coming in and getting seated, when suddenly a woman's voice began to lead the little choir. I looked up with a start. She was tall and slender; and as she stood with lifted head singing her heart out, I don't think I ever saw such a splendid carriage, even at the President's reception in Washington. She looked like a princess among the plain farmer folk; for a crown she had a mass of lovely soft white hair, and the sweetest, clearest eyes I ever saw. When she was singing "Coronation" (which was quite appropriate for a princess) it seemed as if she would lift the whole congregation up to God.