and a sweet trouble, a restless, pleasing curiosity, had filled her consciousness. Who was he? Where had he gone to? When should they meet again? Ah, she understood now how Emmeline Labiche had felt constrained to seek her lover from the snows of Canada to the moss-veiled oaks of Louisiana.
But her joyous, hopeful soul could not think of love and disappointment at the same moment. “I have seen him, and I shall see him again. We met by appointment. Destiny introduced us. Neither of us will forget, and somewhere, some day, I shall be waiting, and he will come.”
Thus this daughter of sunshine and hope answered herself; and why not? All good things come to those who can wait in sweet tranquillity for them, and seldom does Fortune fail to bring love and heart’s-ease upon the changeful stream of changeful days to those who trust her for them.
On the following morning, when the two girls entered the parlor, they found the Judge smoking there. He had already breakfasted, and looked over the three or four newspapers whose opinions he thought worthy of his consideration. They were lying in a state of confusion at his side, and Ethel glanced at them curiously.
“Did any of the papers speak of the singing before the Holland House?” she asked.
“Yes. I think reporters must be ubiquitous. All my papers had some sort of a notice of the affair.”
“What do they say?”
“One gave the bare circumstances of the case; another indulged in what was supposed to be humorous description; a third thought it might have been the result of a bet or dare; a fourth was of the opinion that conspiracy between the old beggar and the young man was not unlikely, and credited the exhibition as a cleverly original way of obtaining money. But all agreed in believing the singer to be a member of some opera company now in the city.”
Ethel was indignant. “It was neither ‘bet’ nor ‘dare’ nor ‘conspiracy,’” she said. “I saw the singer as he came walking rapidly down the avenue, and he looked as happy and careless as a boy whistling on a country lane. When his eyes fell on the old man he hesitated, just a moment, and then spoke to him. I am sure they were absolute strangers to each other.”
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