“So she druv out to your mother’s place for you, did she?” he commented, admiringly. “That girl’s a genuwine chip of the old block. I mean,” he added, with an apologetic smile, “of the old, old block. I ain’t got so much git-up-and-git about me, that I know of, but her grandfather was a regular snorter!” “We shall not forget how much we are obliged to you, Mr. Lawton,” said Kate, pleasantly, offering him her hand. “Be sure that you tell your daughter, too, how grateful we all are.” Ben took the delicate hand thus amazingly extended to him, and shook it with formal awkwardness. “I didn’t seem to do much,” he said, deprecatingly, “and perhaps I wouldn’t have amounted to much, neether, if it had a-come to fightin’ and gougin’ and wras’lin’ round generally. But you can bet your boots, ma’am, that I’d a-done what I could!” With this chivalrous assurance Ben withdrew, and marched down the steps with a carriage more nearly erect than Thessaly had ever seen him assume before. The heavy front door swung to, and Reuben realized, with a new rush of charmed emotion, that heaven had opened for him once more. A servant came and whispered something to Miss Kate. The latter nodded, and then turned to Reuben with a smile full of light and softness. “If you will give me your arm,” she said, in a delicious murmur, “we will go into the dining-room. My mother and sister are waiting for us there. We are not supper-people as a rule, but it seemed right to have one to-night.” CHAPTER XXXV.--THE SHINING REWARD. The scene which opened upon Reuben’s eyes was like a vista of fairyland. The dark panelled room, with its dim suggestions of gold frames and heavy curtains, and its background of palms and oleanders, contributed with the reticence of richness to the glowing splendor of the table in its centre. Here all light was concentrated--light which fell from beneath ruby shades at the summits of tall candles, and softened the dazzling whiteness of the linen, mellowed the burnished gleam of the silver plate, reflected itself in tender, prismatic hues from the facets of the cut-glass decanters. There were flowers here which gave forth still the blended fragrance of their hot-house home, and fragile, painted china, and all the nameless things of luxury which can make the breaking of bread a poem. Reuben had seen something dimly resembling this in New York once or twice at semi-public dinners. The thought that this higher marvel was in his honor intoxicated his reason. The other thought--that conceivably his future might lie all in this flower-strewn, daintily lighted path--was too heady, too full of threatened delirium, to be even entertained. With an anxious hold upon himself, he felt his way forward to self-possession. It came sooner than he had imagined it would, and thereafter everything belonged to a dream of delight.