“Did Letty tell you what she had done for me?” asked Christie, looking more like a rose than ever Kitty did.
“She told me every thing, and wished me to tell you all her story, even the saddest part of it. I’d better do it now before you meet again.”
He paused as if the tale was hard to tell; but Christie put her hand on his lips saying softly:
“Never tell it; let her past be as sacred as if she were dead. She was my friend when I had no other: she is my dear sister now, and nothing can ever change the love between us.”
If she had thought David’s face beautiful with gratitude when he told the happier portions of that history, she found it doubly so when she spared him the recital of its darkest chapter, and bade him “leave the rest to silence.”
“Now you will come home? Mother wants you, Letty longs for you, and I have got and mean to keep you all my life, God willing!”
“I’d better die to-night and make a blessed end, for so much happiness is hardly possible in a world of woe,” answered Christie to that fervent invitation.
“We shall be married very soon, take a wedding trip to any part of the world you like, and our honeymoon will last for ever, Mrs. Sterling, Jr.,” said David, soaring away into the future with sublime disregard of obstacles.
Before Christie could get her breath after that somewhat startling announcement, Mr. Power appeared, took in the situation at a glance, gave them a smile that was a benediction, and said heartily as he offered a hand to each:
“Now I’m satisfied; I’ve watched and waited patiently, and after many tribulations you have found each other in good time;” then with a meaning look at Christie he added slyly: “But David is ‘no hero’ you know.”
She remembered the chat in the strawberry bed, laughed, and colored brightly, as she answered with her hand trustfully in David’s, her eyes full of loving pride and reverence lifted to his face:
“I’ve seen both sides of the medal now, and found it ‘sterling gold.’ Hero or not I’m content; for, though he ‘loves his mother much,’ there is room in his heart for me too; his ‘old books’ have given him something better than learning, and he has convinced me that ‘double flowers’ are loveliest and best.”
Christie’s return was a very happy one, and could not well be otherwise with a mother, sister, and lover to welcome her back. Her meeting with Letty was indescribably tender, and the days that followed were pretty equally divided between her and her brother, in nursing the one and loving the other. There was no cloud now in Christie’s sky, and all the world seemed in bloom. But even while she enjoyed every hour of life, and begrudged the time given to sleep, she felt as if the dream was too beautiful to last, and often said: