"I suppose you have not settled yet as to what ship you will return by, Atherton?" Mr. Renshaw asked as the party were gathered in the verandah in the evening.  
"No," Mr. Atherton replied, absently watching the smoke of his cigar as it curled up, "nothing is at all settled; my plans seem to be quite vague now."
 
"What do you mean, Mr. Atherton?" Mrs. Renshaw asked in surprise, for Mr. Atherton's plans were generally mapped out very decidedly. "How is it that your plans are vague? I thought you said two days ago that you should go down to Wellington about the 20th."
 
"I did not mean to say that they were vague, Mrs. Renshaw; did I really say so?"
 
"Why, of course you did," Mrs. Renshaw said; "and it is not often that you are vague about anything."
 
"That shows that you do not understand my character, Mrs. Renshaw," Mr. Atherton said in his usual careless manner. "I am the vaguest of men—a child of chance, a leaf blown before the wind."
 
Wilfrid laughed. "It would have taken a very strong wind when we first knew you."
 
"I am speaking metaphorically, Wilfrid. I am at London, and the idea occurs to me to start for the Amazon and botanize there for a few months. I pack up and start the next morning. I get there and do not like the place, and say to myself it is too hot here, let me study the Arctic flora at Spitzbergen. If I act[Pg 341] upon an idea promptly, well and good, but if I allow any time to elapse between the idea striking me and my carrying the thing into execution, there is never any saying whether I may not go off in an entirely different groove during the interval."
 
"And is there any chance of your going off in any other groove now, Atherton?" Mr. Renshaw asked.
 
"No, I think not; just a remote possibility perhaps, but not more than that. It is so indefinitely small, indeed, that you may—yes, I think you may safely calculate upon my starting on the day I said, or if I find a ship at Wellington going on a trading excursion among the islands, or up to the Straits, or to Japan, I may likely enough take a passage in her."
 
"But I thought you said that your business required you to be at home, Mr. Atherton?"
 
"Yes, I suppose that is so, Wilfrid; but I daresay my solicitor would manage it just as well if I did not turn up. Solicitors are people who, as far as I can see, consider it their duty to bother you, but if they find that you pay no attention to their letters they manage somehow or other to get on very well without you. I believe they go into a court and make affidavits, and get an order authorizing them to sign for you. I do not know how it generally is done, but that is my experience of them so far."
 
Marion had said little that evening, and had indeed been very quiet for the last few days. She was somewhat indignant at Wilfrid's interference in what she considered her affairs, and felt that although her father and mother had said nothing, they too were somewhat disappointed, and would have been glad had she accepted Bob Allen. Besides she had reasons of her own for being out of spirits. After breakfast the next[Pg 342] morning Mr. Atherton said: "Marion, when you have finished your domestic duties and can be spared, suppose you put on your hat and come for a ramble with me."
 
There was nothing unusual in the request, for the girl often accompanied him in his rambles when he was not going far into the forest.
 
"I shall be ready in half an hour, if your highness can wait so long."
 
"I am in no hurry, child, and will smoke a pipe on the verandah until you are ready."
 
Marion always enjoyed these walks with Mr. Atherton. He was at all times a pleasant companion, and when alone with her always exerted himself to amuse her, though he sometimes vexed her by talking to her as if she were a child. To-day he was much more silent than usual, and more than once she looked up in wonder at his face as he walked along puffing at his pipe, with his hands deep in his jacket pockets and his eyes bent on the ground.
 
"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Atherton," she said at last with a laugh. "It seems to me that you would have got on just as well without me."
 
"Well, I was just thinking that I was a fool to ask you to come with me, child." Marion opened her eyes in surprise. "You see, my dear," he went on, "we all make fools of ourselves sometimes. I started in life by making a fool of myself. I fell in love with a woman whom I thought perfection. She was an arrant flirt, and was only amusing herself with me till she hooked a young lord for whom she was angling. That was what sent me roaming for the first time; and, as you know, having once started I have kept it up ever since, that is till I came out here. I had[Pg 343] intended to stay six months; I have been here three years. Why have I stopped so long? Simply, child, because I have again made a fool of myself. I do not think I was conscious of it for the first two years, and it was only when I saw, as I thought, that young Allen would win you, that I recognized that I, a man of thirty-seven, was fool enough to love a child just eighteen years younger than myself. At the same time I was not fool enough to think that I had the smallest chance. I could not stop here and watch another winning you, and at the same time I was so weak that I could not go away altogether; and so you see I compromised matters by going away for weeks and sometimes months at a time, returning with the expectation each time of hearing that it was settled. Now I hear that you have refused him, and, just as a drowning man grasps at a straw, I resolved to have my fate absolutely settled before I sail. Don't be afraid of saying 'no,' dear. I have never for a moment looked for any other answer, but I think that I would rather have the 'no' than go away without it, for in after years I might be fool enough to come to think that possibly, just possibly, the answer, had I asked the question, might have been 'yes.'"
 
He had stopped in his walk when he began to speak, and stood facing Marion, who had not raised her eyes while he was speaking. Then she looked frankly up in his face.
 
"Do you think I did not know," she said softly, "and didn't you really know too? You are not so wise a man as I thought you. Why, ever since I have known you it seems to me that—that—"
 
"That you have loved me, Marion; is it possible?" he said taking her hand.[Pg 344]
 
"Of course it is possible," she said almost pettishly "how could I help it, I should like to know?"
 
Dinner had been waiting for some time before Mr. Atherton and his companion returned from their ramble.
 
"Twenty minutes late!" Wilfrid shouted as they approached the house; "have you been losing yourselves in the bush?"
 
"I think that it has been just the other way, Wilfrid," Mr. Atherton said as he came up to the group gathered in the verandah.
 
"How do you mean?" Wilfrid asked.
 
"I mean we have been finding each other."
 
"Finding each other," Wilfrid repeated vaguely. "Why, were you both lost?"
 
"I was, Wilfrid. Mrs. Renshaw, I have found your daughter, and am going, with your permission and that of her father, to keep her. I am a good bit older than she is, but as she says she does not mind that, I hope that you will not, and at least I can promise to do all in my power to make her happy."
 
"I am surprised, Mr. Atherton; surprised and glad too," Mrs. Renshaw said, while Mr. Renshaw grasped Mr. Atherton's hand and shook it heartily.
 
"My dear sir, there is no one in the world to whom I could intrust Marion's happiness so gladly and heartily. I own that it is a surprise to me, as well as to her mother, but we are both delighted at the choice she has made."
 
By this time Marion and her mother had gone indoors together. Wilfrid had not yet spoken, his surprise was still too great for words.
 
"Well, Wilfrid," Mr. Atherton said, turning to him, "I hope your disapproval of Marion's conduct on[Pg 345] this occasion is not so great as it was when you were talking to me yesterday."
 
"I hardly know what to say yet, you have taken me so by surprise; but I am awfully glad—you know that, don't you? There is no one in the world I should like Marion to marry so much, only somehow it never occurred to me."
 
"That is natural enough, Wilfrid. However, now that it has occurred to you, and you approve of it, we must hope that Marion will be restored to your good graces again."
 
"I have been making an ass of myself," Wilfrid said penitently; "but you believe that I am awfully glad, don't you? I was disappointed about Bob, but then, you see, I never thought about you. Why, you must know, Mr. Atherton, what I think of you and how I care for you, and how I look up to you. Somehow it never seemed possible to me that a man like you could fall in love."
 
"And much more improbable still, Wilfrid, that your sister would fall in love with me. I understand you, lad. We have been very close friends for the last three years, haven't we? I have been something like a very big and very old brother to you, and now we are going to be brothers in earnest;" and their hands closed in a grip that spoke volumes for the sincerity and depth of their feelings. Then Wilfrid ran into the house and threw his arms round his sister.
 
"I have been an awful fool, Marion," he said; "but you see, I never dreamt of this."
 
"And you are really pleased, Wilfrid?"
 
"Pleased! I am delighted. Why, you know, I think he is the finest fellow in the world; and has he not done everything for us, and stood by me and[Pg 346] nursed me, and carried me for miles, and saved mother's life and mine? But it never entered my mind that you had fallen in love with each other."
 
"I do not know why it shouldn't, Wilfrid. Why shouldn't I think as much of him as you do?"
 
"I do not know, I am sure, Marion; but I confess I never did think of it. Did you, mother?"
 
"Once or twice, Wilfrid. About a year ago it did cross my mind once or twice, but that was all. They say mothers are keen-sighted as far as their daughters are concerned; but either I am less keen-sighted than mothers in general, or Marion is deeper than other girls."
 
"Well, mother, we shall have lots of time to talk this over," Wilfrid said. "Dinner has been waiting nearly an hour, and even this wonderful business cannot have taken away all our appetites. Ever............