Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/96

68 a voice full of tenderness and pleading — the voice of the young wooer of her girlhood — “Is it too late to ask you to forgive me? I’ve been a stubborn fool — but there hasn’t been an hour in all these years that I haven’t thought about you and our baby and longed for you.”

Isabella Spencer had hated this man; yet her hate had been but a parasite growth on a nobler stem, with no abiding roots of its own. It withered under his words, and lo, there was the old love, fair and strong and beautiful as ever.

“Oh — David — I — was — all — to — blame,” she murmured brokenly.

Further words were lost on her husband’s lips.

When the hubbub of handshaking and congratulations had subsided, Isabella Spencer stepped out before the company. She looked almost girlish and bridal herself, with her flushed cheeks and bright eyes.

“Let’s go back now and have supper, and be sensible,” she said crisply. “Rachel, your father is coming, too. He is coming to stay” — with a defiant glance around the circle. “Come, everybody.”

They went back with laughter and raillery over the quiet autumn fields, faintly silvered now by the moon that was rising over the hills. The young bride and groom lagged behind; they were very happy, but they were not so happy, after all, as the old bride