"Harriet," called her mother from the doorway. "You will take cold out there without anything around you. Come in."
Harriet obeyed, and when she emerged from the outer darkness into the dim light of the dining-room they could all see that her mother's fears for her health were unnecessary and unfounded. She did have something around her. It was Billy Spencer's coat-sleeve, and it was ample protection under the circumstances against any amount of night air.
"Mrs. Dalgren," said Billy, "I have just asked Harriet to be my wife, and I now ask you to give her to me."
And Mrs. Dalgren gladly, albeit somewhat tearfully, consented, whereat there was great rejoicing among the younger members of the family, for Billy Spencer was a hero in their eyes, and much beloved.
Later that night, in the seclusion of her own room, where she was joined by her mother and Kitty, Harriet related so far as she knew it, the history of Virginia's sudden marriage.
"It was an attack of 'love at first sight' if ever there was one," she said. "When we went aboard the steamer at Liverpool this man was the first person we met. And it was a clear case of 'spoons' from that moment. Father Roquet happened to know him and introduced him on the spot. By the time we reached New York the whole thing was settled. He had to go South, on important business, but when we reached San Francisco he was there before us, and insisted upon the marriage taking place then and there. Of course, I felt it my duty to interpose objections. We were so near home, why not come on and be married here? But I might as well have talked to the wind. Virginia had no ears for any one but her fiance, and so Father Roquet, who was, as usual, conveniently at hand, tied the knot, and I came home alone."
"And do you think, Harriet, that she will be happy?" sighed the mother, half-regretfully.
"No doubt of it," replied Harriet. "Why shouldn't they be? He's as handsome as heart could desire, dark and reserved, and all that, you know — and as rich as Croesus.
He's some sort of a relative of Father Roquet, I fancy — that is, if priests have relations. Anyway, they're married and coming to Oregon to live, Virginia says. And, mother dear, it strikes me you're a rather lucky woman to get your two oldest daughters off your hands with so little worry."
Harriet's version of the affair was the true one as far as it went, but Harriet little dreamed how much she left untold.
When Virginia, slightly in advance of her party, stepped upon the deck of the homeward-bound Atlantic liner, the man in the case was leaning against the rail. Their eyes met, and in that glance Virginia recognized her fate. But it was not till long afterward that she learned the full significance of that meeting, and heard the story of a love transcendent in self-sacrifice and in patience. At that moment she was ignorant of the seven long years of waiting, during which she had been the day-star of this man's existence, ignorant of the fact that day in her early girlhood when he first beheld her under the apple-tree in the old orchard, he had thought of her, toiled for her, planned for happiness and guarded her life from even the shadow of care. And now, at last, he had his reward, for Virginia gave her whole heart and was happy in the giving.
After a few months among the orange groves of Santa Barbara, they came to Oregon, and in Oregon they are living to this day. Very few people remember Virginia as the stolen bride, whose sudden disappearance caused a nine days' sensation. And, though maybe now and then in talking of the past some one will mention the almost forgotten hero of the turf, Jeff Le Febre, no one associates the dark and handsome man who is regarded as a potent factor of the commonwealth with that one-time dreaded character. It is not often the lot of man and woman to possess a happiness so complete as theirs. And in their beautiful home on the "Heavenly Heights" of Portland, with their children growing up about them, we will leave them, and leave it to the reader to decide whether or not he was justified in the theft of another's bride.
(The End.)
