Her thoughts flowed on and had passed to business and all that awaited them in Chicago, when her husband rejoined her.  She rose from the bed as he came in, and hand in hand they stood and looked down at Jewel, asleep.

Harry stooped and kissed the flushed cheek.

“Don’t wake her, dear,” said Julia, smiling at the energy of the caress.

“Wake her?  I don’t believe a clap of thunder would have that effect.  Why, she and father have been painting the town; dining at the Waldorf, driving in the park, riding in the swan boats, and then hanging around that dock.  Bless her little heart, I should think she’d sleep for twenty-four hours.”

“How wonderfully kind of him!” returned Julia.  “You need never tell me again, Harry, that your father doesn’t love you.”

“Oh, loving hasn’t been much in father’s line, but we hope it will be,” returned the young man as he slipped an arm around his wife.  “Do you remember the last time we stood watching Jewel asleep?  I do.  It was in that beastly hotel the night before we sailed.”

“Oh, Harry!” Julia buried her face a moment on his shoulder.  “Shall you ever forget our relief when her first letter came, showing that she was happy?  Do you remember the hornpipe you danced in our lodgings and how you shocked the landlady?  Your father may not call it loving, but his care and thoughtfulness have expressed that and he can’t help my loving him forever and forever for being kind to Jewel.”

Harry gave his head a quick shake.  “I’ll be hanged if I can see how anybody could be unkind to her,” he remarked.

“Oh, well, you’ve never been an elderly man, set in your ways and used to living alone.  I’m sure it meant a great deal to him.  Think of his doing all that for her this afternoon.”

“Oh, he had to pass the time somehow, and he couldn’t very well refuse to let her come in to meet us.  Besides, she’s on the eve of going away, and father likes to do the handsome thing.  He was doing it for other people, though, when Lawrence and I were kids.  He never took us in any swan boats.”

“Poor little boys!” murmured Julia.

“Oh, not at all,” returned Harry, laughing rather sardonically.  “We took ourselves in the swan boats and in a variety of other places not so picturesque.  Father’s purse strings were always loose, and so long as we kept out of his way he didn’t care what we did.  Nice old place, this, Julia?”

“Oh, it’s very fine.  I had no idea how fine.”  Her tone was somewhat awestruck.

“I used to know, absolutely, that father was through with me, and that therefore I was through with Bel-Air; but I’m a new man,” the speaker smiled down at his wife and pressed her closer to him, “and I’ve been telling father why, and how.”

“Is that what you’ve been talking about?”

“Yes.  He seemed interested to hear of my business and prospects and asked me a lot of questions; so, as I only began to live less than a year ago, I couldn’t answer them without telling him who and what had set me on my feet.”