“Boys will be boys,” she says, forgetting that Neil is over thirty years of age, and she keeps his breakfast warm for him, and gets up to let him in when he has staid later than usual at the Ridge House, where he is a frequent visitor, for he and Allen Browne are fast friends and boon companions.  Together they ride and drive, and row on the lakes around Allington; together they smoke and lounge on the broad piazza of the Ridge House, but Neil never drinks or plays with Allen, or any one else, for his aunt made it a condition of her friendship, that he should never touch a drop of anything which could intoxicate, or soil his hands with cards, even for amusement.  The shadow of that awful tragedy at Monte Carlo is over her still, and she looks upon anything like card-playing as savoring of the pit.

Allen Browne is a young man of elegant leisure, who takes perfumed baths, and wears an overcoat which comes nearly to his feet, and a collar which cuts his ears.  He is a graduate from Harvard, and his mother says his ‘schoolin’ has cost over fifteen thousand dollars, though where under the sun and moon the money went she can’t contrive.

Mrs. Rossiter-Browne is very proud of her son and of her daughter, the Lady Augusta, who comes home nearly every summer with a retinue of servants and her little boy, who calls himself Lord Rossiter-Browne Hardy, and Neil Jerrold, when he is angry with him, “a little Yankee,” while Neil promptly returns the compliment by calling him a “freckled-faced paddy.”

In the old home on Beacon street, Mrs. Geraldine still affects her air of exclusiveness and invalidism, although a good deal softened and improved by the grandchildren, of whom she is very fond, and whose baby hands and baby prattle have found their way to her heart, making her a better because a less selfish woman.

In the street and among men Burton Jerrold holds his head as high as ever, for all his shame and dread are buried in the grave under the white cross at Stoneleigh Cottage, where Bessie spends every summer, with her children, and where Grey spends as much time as possible.  He is a man of business now, and many go to him for counsel and advice, and this, except in the hottest weather, keeps him in the city during the week.  But every Saturday afternoon the Jerrold carriage, with Bessie and the children in it, stands behind the station waiting for the train, the first sound of which in the distance is caught up and repeated by Neil and Robin, while Baby Bessie claps her hands and calls out, “Papa is coming.”  And very soon papa comes, with an expression of perfect content on his fine face as he kisses his wife and babies, and then in the delicious coolness of the late afternoon is driven up the shaded avenue to the cottage where the plateau is bright with flowers, and where the daisy cross in its purple heart of pansies, gleams white and pure in the summer sunshine.

THE END.