"Do sit down, father," said Harry, as his wife seated herself in the
nearest chair.

Mr. Evringham hesitated before complying. "Well," he said perfunctorily,
"you have gone into something that promises well, eh Harry?"

"It looks that way. I'm chiefly occupied these days in being thankful."
The young man smiled with an extraordinary sweetness of expression,
which transfigured his face, and which his father remembered well as
always promising much and performing nothing. "I might spend a lot of
time crying over spilt milk, but Julia says I mustn't,"--he glanced
across at his wife, whose dark eyes smiled back,--"and what Julia says
goes. I intend to spend a year or two doing instead of talking."

"It will answer better," remarked his father.

"Yes, sir," Harry's voice grew still more earnest. "And by that time,
perhaps, I can express my regret to you, for things done and things left
undone, with more convincingness."

The older man made a slight gesture of rejection with one well-kept
hand. "Let bygones be bygones," he returned briefly.

"When I think," pursued Harry, his impulsive manner in strange contrast
to that of his listener, "that if I had been behaving myself all this
time, I might have seen dear old Lawrence again!"

Mr. Evringham kept silence.