"
For the first time his aunt's lips opened.
"The poor child!" she said.
"I want more than your sympathy for Sheila, auntie," he urged
earnestly. "I want your approval of what Sheila and I mean to
do--in time. Of course, I must be better established first and be
making money enough to support a--a family. And Sheila would not
think of leaving the old people up there. They need her so sorely."
"But you may as well know, first as last, Aunt Lucretia, that I mean
to marry Sheila. I know it was wrong in me to try to palm her off on
you as somebody she wasn't--to try to fool you--"
"You did not fool me, Tunis; not for a moment," she told him softly.
He stared at her in amazement.
"No," went on his usually inarticulate aunt. "The moment I first
looked into her face I knew she was not Sarah Honey's daughter. That
baby's eyes were brown when Sarah brought her here years ago; and no
brown eyes could change to such a beautiful violet-blue as--as
Sheila's. I knew you and she were trying to deceive me, but I could
not help loving the dear girl from my first sight of her."
That was a very long speech indeed for Aunt Lucretia to make. She
put her arms about Tunis Latham's neck and said all the rest she
might have said in a loving kiss.
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