“I guess we won’t talk about forgiveness, dearie—­we’re about even, I think—­but we’ve had our lesson.  I’ve got my girl back—­and, Evelyn, I want you and Fred to come home with me for Christmas and forever.  You’ve got the old man solid, Evelyn.  I couldn’t face a Christmas without you.”

Evelyn kissed him again without speaking.

“I will apologize to your man, Evelyn,” the old man said, after a pause.  “I haven’t treated the boy right.  I hope he won’t hold it against me.”

“Not a bit of it,” declared Evelyn.  “You don’t know Fred—­that’s all.”

“Oh, how did you get here, Evelyn?  Do you live near here?  I have been so glad to see you I forgot to ask.”

“Mr. Brown brought me over,” said Evelyn, unblushingly.  “He came over early this morning to tell me you were here.  Wasn’t it nice of him?”

“He’s a dandy fellow, this young Brown,” said the old man, and then stopped abruptly.

Evelyn’s eyes were sparkling with suppressed laughter.

“But where is Fred?” her father asked, with an effort, and Evelyn watched him girding himself for a painful duty.

“I’ll call him,” she said, sweetly.

The old man’s grey eyes grew dark with excitement and surprise as his friend Brown came into the room and stood beside Evelyn and quite brazenly put his left arm around her waist.  His face was a study in emotions as his quick brain grasped the situation.  With a prolonged whistle he dropped back on the pillow, and pulling the counterpane over his face he shook with laughter.

“The joke is all on me,” he cried.  “I have been three or four different kinds of a fool.”

Then he emerged from the bed-clothes and, sitting up, grasped Fred’s outstretched hand.

“There’s one thing, though, I am very proud of, Fred,” he said; “I may not be a good judge of humanity myself, but I am glad to know that my girl had all her wits about her when she went to pick out a man for herself!”

Randolph and Reginald stayed in hiding until it was established beyond all doubt that their brother Fred was alive and well.  Then they came back to the “Sailors’ Rest,” and life for them went on as before.

At Christmas time a bulky letter and a small white box came addressed to them, bearing the postmark of Bournemouth.

The brothers seized their letter with undiluted joy; it was addressed in a bold, masculine hand, a lawyer’s undoubtedly—­a striking though perhaps not conclusive proof that Aunt Patience had winged her flight.

They were a little bit disappointed that it had not black edges—­they had always imagined that the “blow” would come with black edges.

Reginald opened it, read it, and let it fall to the floor.

Randolph opened it, read it, and let it fall to the floor.

It contained a thick announcement card, with heavy gold edge, and the news that it carried was to the effect that on December the first Miss Priscilla Abigail Patience Brydon had been united in marriage to Rev. Alfred William Henry Curtis Moreland, Rector of St. Albans, Tilbury-on-the-Stoke, and followed this with the information that Mr. and Mrs. Alfred William Henry Curtis Moreland would be at home after January the first in the Rectory, Appleblossom Court, Parklane Road, Tilbury-on-the-Stoke.