"There is one other point, then I have done," said Doctor Prescott. "I have withdrawn my objection to my son's marriage with your sister. That is all. I have said and heard all I wish, and I will not detain you any longer." Doctor Prescott looked at him with a pale and forbidding majesty in his clear-cut face. Jerome arose, and was passing out without a word, as he was bidden, when the old man held out his hand. He had the air of extending a sceptre, and a haughty downward look, as if the whole world, and his own self, were under his feet. Jerome shook the proffered hand, and went. His hand was on the latch of the outer door, when the sitting-room door on the left opened, and he felt himself enveloped, as it were, in a softly gracious feminine presence, made evident by wide rustlings of silken skirts, pointed foldings of lavender-scented white wool over out-stretched arms, and heaving waves of white lace over a high, curving bosom. Doctor Prescott's wife drew Jerome to her as if he were still a child, and kissed him on his cheek. "Give your sister my fondest love, and may God give you your own reward, dear boy," she said, in her beautiful voice, which was like no other woman's for sweetness and softness, though she was as large as a queen. Then she was gone, and Jerome went home, with the scent of lavender from her laces and silks and white wools still in his nostrils, and a subtler sweetness of womanhood and fine motherhood dimly perceived in his soul. When he got home, he knew, by the light in the parlor windows, that Lawrence was with his sister. He had been in bed some time before he heard the front door shut. Elmira, when she came up-stairs, opened his door a crack, and whispered, in a voice tremulous with happiness, "Jerome, you asleep?" "No." "Do--you know--about Lawrence and me?" "Yes; I'm real glad, Elmira." "I hope you'll forgive me for speaking to you the way I did, Jerome." "That's all right, Elmira." Chapter XL The next morning Jerome was just going out of the yard when he met Paulina Maria Judd and Henry coming in. Paulina Maria held her blind son by the hand, but he walked with an air of resisting her guidance. "J'rome, I've come to see you about that money," said Paulina Maria. "I hear you're goin' to give us two hundred and fifty dollars. I told you once we wouldn't take your money." "This is different. This is the money Colonel Lamson left me, that I'd agreed to give away." "It ain't any different to us. You can keep it." "I sha'n't keep it, anyway. For God's sake, aunt, take it! Henry, take it, and get your eyes cured!"