Page:Stimson--Pirate gold.djvu/100

90 away. Hughson (to Mercedes' relief) took it a bit rusty and would not come. Then the pair went on a wedding journey to Niagara and Trenton Falls; and old Jamie, the day after the ceremony, came down looking happier than he had seemed for years. There was a light in his lonely old face; it comes rarely to us on earth, but, by one who sees it, it is not forgotten. Old Mr. Bowdoin saw it; and, remembering that interview scarce two years gone by, his nose tingled. It is rare that natures with such happy lives as his are so "dowered with the love of love." But when old Jamie looked at him, he but asked some business question; and Jamie marveled that the old gentleman blew his nose so hard and damned the weather so vigorously.

When the St. Clairs came back, Jamie moved to an upper back room, and gave them the rest of the new house. Mercedes was devotedly in love with her husband. She would have liked to meet people, if but to show him to them. But she knew no one worthy save the Bowdoins, and they did not get on with him. His own social acquaintance, of which he had boasted somewhat, appeared to be in other