"After you have seen him, father, come home at once, won't you?" she
said as she handed him her letter.

"Yes, I am only going for this," he replied.

It was plain that his errand had not grown less distasteful to him.
Perhaps Elizabeth was aware of this, for she reached up and passed an
arm about his neck.

"I don't believe any girl ever had such a father!" she whispered softly.

"I suppose I should not be susceptible to such manifest flattery," said
the general, kissing her, "but I find I am! There, you keep up your
courage! This old father of yours is a person of such excellent sense
that he is going to aid and abet you in this most outrageous folly; I
expect, even, that in time, my interest in this very foolish young man
will be only second to your own, my dear!"

As he drove away he turned in his seat to glance back at the graceful
girlish figure standing in the shelter of Idle Hour's stone arched
vestibule, and as he did so there was a flutter of something white,
which assured him that her keen eyes were following him and would follow
him until the distance and the closing darkness intervened, and hid him
from her sight.

"I hope it will come out all right!" he told himself and sighed.

If it did _not_ come out all right, where was his peace of mind; where
was the calm, where the long reposeful days he had so valued? But this