The minister was no longer laughing. He sat in the rocker strangely quiet. Perhaps he did not realize that his eyes were on Cornelia's beautiful face; perhaps he thought he was looking at the doll. He knew what he was thinking of. The utter loneliness behind him and ahead of him appalled him in its contrast to this. This woman sitting opposite him with the face of the woman that a man would like always near him, this little home with the two of them in it alone--the minister knew what it was he wanted. He wanted it to go right on--never to end. He knew that he had always wanted it. All the soul of the man rose up to claim it. And because there was need of hurry, because Marilla Merritt was coming, he held out his hands to Cornelia and the foolish, unastonished doll.

"Come," he said, pleadingly, and of course the doll could not have gone alone. He dropped it gently back into its place on the sofa.

Marilla Merritt had been unwarrantably delayed. She came in flushed and panting, but indomitably smiling. Her sharp glance sought for a wife and five children.

"Such a delightful surprise!" she panted, holding out her hand to the minister. "We are so glad to welcome--Why!--have you shown them to their rooms, Cornelia?"

"They--they didn't come," murmured Cornelia, retreating to her unfailing ally on the sofa. In the stress of the moment--for Cornelia was not ready for Marilla Merritt--it had seemed to her that the time for "lies"

had come. She had even beckoned to the nearest one. But the ghosts of ministers' wives that had been and that were to be had risen in a warning cloud about her and saved her.

"Didn't come!" shrilled Marilla Merritt in her astonishment. "His wife and children didn't come! Do you know what you are saying, Cornelia? You don't mean--Then I don't wonder you look fl.u.s.tered--" She caught herself up hurriedly, but her thoughts ran on unchecked. Of all things that ever! Could absent-mindedness go further than this--to marry a wife and forget to bring her home with him?--and _five children!_

Marilla Merritt turned sharply upon the minister.

"Where is your wife?" she demanded, the frayed ends of her patience trailing from her tone. The minister crossed the room to Cornelia and the doll. He laid his big white hand gently on Cornelia's small white one. There was protective tenderness in the gesture and the touch.

"I found her here waiting for me," the minister said.

THE END