Page:Lady Athlyne (IA ladyathlyne00stok).pdf/335

 "Quite right, my boy! Quite right! said the old man. "Then we shall leave the orders to her. Here, Joy!" she came over, and her father put his suggestion to her. She hesitated gravely, and paused before she spoke; she evidently intended that there should be no mistake as to her deliberate intention:

"No! Daddy, that won't do; I'm going with my husband!" She took his arm and clung to him lovingly, her finger tips biting sweetly into his flesh. "But, Daddy dear, we'll come over to-morrow and lunch or breakfast with you, if we may. Call it early lunch or late breakfast. We shall be over about noon. Remember we have to come from Bowness!"

Athlyne seemed to float in air as he heard her. There was something so sweetly—so truly wifely, in her words and attitude that it won to his heart and set him in a state of rapture.

The late breakfast at Ambleside next day, though ostensibly a mere family breakfast, was hardly to be classed in that category. It was in reality regarded by all the family at present resident in that town as a wedding breakfast. They had one and all dressed themselves for the occasion. Not in complete marriage costume, which would have looked a little overdone, but in a modified form which sufficiently expressed in the mind of each the prevailing spirit of rejoicing. A few seconds before noon the "toot toot" of Athlyne's powerful hooter was heard some distance off. All rushed to the window's to see the great red car swing round the corner. The chauffeur was driving; the bride and groom sat in the tonneau. As Athlyne was not driving he wore an ordinary morning dress—a well-cut suit of light grey which set out well his tall, lithe powerful figure. Joy was wrapped in a huge motor coat of soft grey, with her head shrouded in a veil of the same colour. In the hall they both took off their wraps, Athlyne helping his wife