So Dear to My Heart

by Susan Barrie

  “I’ d never run away again.” Virginia told him and the glow of love in her eyes was more than sufficient to convince him.

  His own eyes softened miraculously. They seemed to caress her. “We’ ll set whatever machinery we have to set in motion and be married within the next few days. The fact that it’ s so near to Christmas doesn’t make any difference. We’ll spend a couple of nights in Paris on our way home and if you want to go shopping you can go shopping where you can get the kind of things that an adorable young woman like you ought to wear! I don’ t approve of old raincoats and soaked head scarves,” he said, frowning at the recollection of the way she had looked when he first caught sight of her that afternoon.

  Virginia smiled faintly.

  “You would if you had to spend all your winters in England.”

  “Well, you will spend your winters in Switzerland! ” He leaned across the table to her and his voice was urgent, “Virginia, I love you—I love you! I want you in my own house and I want to have you under my eye forever and always! ”

  Virginia could barely answer him. Her face was rosy with color and her eyes were misted with happiness.

  “Oh, Leon! ” was all she could say.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Mr. AND Mrs. Holt, the boys and Lisa were all back in the apartment when Virginia took Leon home for the first time. Lisa was washing her hair in the bathroom and she was thrown into a state of the utmost flurry and excitement when she heard voices in the hall and peeped out to see her sister—a new sister this, transformed by happiness and with all her gloom of the past days and weeks utterly vanished— introducing to their parents the man who had given Lisa back the use of her hands.

  Lisa did not stop to dry her hair properly. She dressed hurriedly and joined everybody in the lounge, which as usual was comfortably untidy, but warm and homey after the wintry conditions outside. Dr. Hanson looked whimsically at Lisa as he took her hand and she gazed at him a little reproachfully, for after all he had cast Virginia into the depths of unhappiness, although at the present moment she was quite obviously radiant.

  “Do you think you’ll approve of me as a brother-in-law, Lisa?” he inquired.

  Lisa suddenly smiled.

  “I think you’ll be a very useful brother-in-law to have,” she told him, and then turned to Virginia and hugged her. “Oh. Darling, I’m so glad! ” Virginia was her old Virginia, smiling and cheerful and content. “But I suppose this means we’re going to lose you?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Holt were quite overwhelmed. They were filled with gratitude that they were most anxious to express to the man who had done so much for Lisa, and to meet him unexpectedly like this was a real pleasure. But that he should want to marry Virginia—and marry her almost immediately—took their breath away. Virginia was her father’s favorite daughter and he gazed at her fondly as he saw how openly happy she was, but it shook him that she was going to be whisked away from him again just when he had hoped she would in time settle down to her old life once more. At the same time he realized that the man she had set her heart on was a man to be proud of as a son-in-law, and he could certainly never wish for a better husband for her than one whose reputation was already established, who could offer her an enviable position as his wife, and who, despite his quietly autocratic ways, exercised so much charm that it even made itself felt on the boys, who had been inclined to gaze at him with awe until they decided all at once that he was not merely a “sawbones” who had done great things for Lisa, but a prospective brother-in-law with something about him they could honestly approve.

  Despite the fact that he and Virginia had already made a pretense of eating an unwanted dinner. Dr; Hanson agreed to stay to supper with the family, and after that he spent quite a while closeted alone with Virginia’s father in his little study. And when they presently both emerged Virginia’s future was settled for her and Mr. Holt opened a bottle of champagne he had been keeping for Christmas and insisted upon toasting the pair who were to be married so soon.

  It was an evening to remember and Virginia knew she would remember it all her life, just as she would remember that afternoon when, utterly downcast and without any hope for the future, she had returned from dispatching her Christmas parcels and found the one man who counted above all others alighting from a taxi outside her own front door. Her sensations on meeting his eyes for the first time were imperishable.

  It was close to midnight when he departed, and Virginia went with him to the door of the apartment. He had booked a room at a hotel not very far away and they were to meet again the next day, but she hated to see him go. She stood within the close circle of his arms, her face upturned to his, as he whispered his good-night against her lips.

  “We’ll meet again tomorrow morning—early!” he said. “And after that it won’t be more than forty-eight hours before you will

  never have to say good-night to me anymore.”

  Virginia’s eyes were starry with happiness and the subdued light from the hall lantern shone down upon her and let him see how much those words of his meant to her.

  When she opened the door for him at last they discovered that the rain had ceased and the stars were quite bright over London. Virginia looked up at them and thought of the stars shining down over Aunt Heloise’ s garden and of the shimmering surface of the lake which that garden overlooked.

  “Dear Aunt Heloise!” she murmured suddenly. “I do really long to see her again.”

  “As a matter of fact she wants us to stay with her for a few days,” he told her, gently stroking her cheek “Until you’ve had a chance to look over my rather masculine establishment and see what, if any, alterations you would like to make to it.”

  “She does?” Virginia sounded excited. “That will be lovely! ” And in her heart she knew that it would be more than lovely. Aunt Heloise’s villa—and Leon...! “But I don’t suppose I shall want to make many alterations—perhaps not any at all—to your house. What little I saw of it I thought was very nice indeed. And if you like it I shall like it! ”

  “Will you, my darling?” But he smiled at her a little whimsically. “I wonder whether you will say that ten—twenty— thirty years from now?”

  She looked up at the stars again, dreamily.

  Ten—twenty—thirty years of stars in the lake!