Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/241

 He held out a very cold hand, which she took, dropping some of her flowers at his feet.

"I am so sorry!" she said again, pleadingly, with her hand still in his.

"Sorry you do not love me?"

"Sorry I said I didn't," she whispered very, very softly. But Emerson Swain thought he should have heard that whisper if he had been in battle, with the roar of the cannon in his ears.

They walked home together in the long afternoon light, home to Ben and his wife, whom they found pacing the garden path arminarm. These long-tried lovers looked incredulously at the apparition coming toward them. It was many weeks since they had seen this tall, limping figure within their gates. Did that usually grave face ever before seem so young and animated? did those gray eyes ever before send such a cheerful challenge through the intervening glasses? And more perplexing still was their own Hattie, decked out like a sacrificial lamb, with a look of radiant meekness in her face, which yet was a little pale and awe-struck.

She had not a word to say for herself, but Emerson Swain was under no embarrassment.

"Mrs. Pratt," he said, as they stopped before her, "Hattie has promised to be my Valentine henceforth and forever."

"And I believe they will be very happy," said Mrs. Ben to Mr. Ben, as they talked it over later in the evening. "He is not exactly the kind of