The Prodigal Son. Hall Sir Caine
laughing. "Auntie, what names you are calling us!"
"Better I should do so than somebody else! The people here are all ears, and Oscar is all mouth--he is always talking about you."
"Not always, auntie." Thora's pretty face was reddening in the glass in front of her.
"Always! Only yesterday he said, 'My future sister-in-law----'"
"Not 'future sister-in-law,' auntie."
"Did I speak, or did I not speak, Thora? 'My future sister-in-law is perfectly charming,' he said----"
"Now, I'm sure it wasn't 'charming,' auntie darling."
"Yes, it was, and hold your silly head quiet, miss--'perfectly charming,' he said, 'and I'm half jealous of old Magnus already.'"
The blue eyes in the glass were gleaming with delight, but the mouth said, "Well, of course, I should have been dreadfully vexed if I had heard him say that, but still it isn't my fault----"
"Fiddlesticks!" said Aunt Margret with a sniff of contempt. "Just take a cranky old woman's advice, my precious, and don't make trouble between two brothers."
Then the shining face in the glass became serious and thoughtful, and Thora said:
"How can you say such uncomfortable things, Aunt Margret? Merely because I am going to ride with Oscar to the sheep-gathering----"
"Oh, a little brook can start a big river. But what's the use of talking--a beast can be broken, but not a wilful woman."
Then seeing that the tears were in Thora's eyes Aunt Margret gave the girl's hair a softer smoothing, and said:
"Magnus may not be as clever as his brother, Thora, but he is twenty times as solid and steady, and he is just as able to take care of a girl, and quite as likely to make her happy. Besides, dear, it's all settled and done, and the made road is easiest to travel, you know. Your marriage with Magnus has been arranged between your father and the Governor; they have set their hearts on it, the contract is ready, and if anything should happen now----"
But Thora, who had been listening with head aslant to sounds outside the house, suddenly leapt to her feet, saying, "I do believe that's Silvertop's step."
There was a clatter of hoofs on the cobbles of the street, and at the next moment a silvery male voice under the window was crying,
"Helloa! Helloa! Helloa!"
Thora ran to the Venetians, parted two blades of them, and said, with an air of surprise, "It's Oscar!" Then she tapped the window-pane, and cried "Presently" to the person outside, and stood for a moment to look down at him.
A young man of three-and-twenty sat on one pony and held another by its bridle. He was tall and slim, almost as fair as Thora herself, and he had a cluster of short curls under the Alpine hat which he raised to the moving blind. The moon had gone by this time; a greyish-pink light--the pioneer of the sun--was filtering through a vaporous atmosphere; the ships and fishing boats in the bay were breaking through a veil of mist, and vague shadows of men and women, muffled up to the throats, but chattering and laughing like children, were coming and going in the gloom of the streets.
"Quick, auntie, quick!" cried Thora, lowering her voice, and while the women in the bedroom hustled about and talked in whispers the young man waiting outside slapped his leggings with his riding whip, and whistled and sang alternate lines of a love-song--
"Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine."
"Must I wear these ugly----?"
"Certainly you must. They're warm and comfortable, and it's not as if anybody could see----"
"Auntie, don't speak so loud, or people will hear."
"Or leave a kiss within the cup,
And I'll not ask for wine."
"What a voice he has! I'm certain he'll make a success some day."
"Maybe so, but people don't feed on voices--not in Iceland, anyway--here's your over-skirt."
"For goodness sake, Aunt Margret!"
"The thirst that from the soul doth come
Doth ask a draught divine."
"Now for my hat! If I have to wear this old black riding habit I must have something sweet on my head, at all events. That one with the feather--no, this one and a veil. There! Do I look nice?"
"Shockingly nice, if you ask me."
The girl laughed gaily, and said in a louder voice, "Then let us go downstairs--the poor boy must be tired of waiting, and anxious to be off."
"Not half so anxious as the poor girl, I'm thinking."
Then the smiling face became serious again, and Thora said, "Don't say those dreadful things any more, there's a dear soul!"
"Then don't forget my warning, and watch over your feelings, my precious."
The door to the street was being opened by this time, and a rich barytone voice, mingled with the soft murmur of the sea, came floating into the hall--
"But might I of Jove's nectar sip
I would not change----."
"Helloa! Good morning, Thora! Is that Aunt Margret?"
From, behind the bulwark of the door ajar, with one eye and two curl papers visible in three inches of opening, Aunt Margret answered that it was, and told Oscar, as he lifted Thora to the saddle, to take care of her child and deliver her safely to Magnus.
Oscar laughed a little jauntily, and answered--not, she thought, with too much conviction--
"That'll be all right, auntie. Good-by!"
"Good-by!"
"Good-by, Aunt Margret!"
"Good-by, Thora! And remember!"
At the next moment the two young people had disappeared in the mists of morning, amid a cavalcade of similar shadows dying off in the same direction. Half an hour afterward the sun had risen and the little capital was going merrily.
II
The father of Oscar Stephenson was Stephen Magnusson (according to his Icelandic patronymic), and he had been Governor-General of Iceland for more than twenty years. He was a man of the highest integrity and of the firmest mind. In his public character he was zealous and incorruptible, and his private life was without stain. His chief characteristics were dignity and pride.
The father of Thora was Oscar Neilsen, commonly called Factor Neilsen (of Icelandic birth, but Danish descent), and he was the chief merchant and one of the richest citizens of the capital. His business methods had often been a subject for discussion, and his domestic history a cause of gossip. He was a man of untiring industry and great frugality, amounting almost to greed.
These two men had been lifelong friends. Their friendship had not been founded on any hollow commercial league, but nevertheless it had been cemented by community of interest, and it was a common saying that the man who could break it could break the constitution. It was one of those friendships that are young after fifty years, and are constantly growing younger because they are always growing older--a peculiarity of all friendships that are true and constant, and the reason why new friendships can never take the place of old ones. Half a word explained a meaning, half a look provoked a laugh. Their friendship was the unwritten history of their past, a living obituary of memories and ideas that were dead. It began in boyhood, and notwithstanding varying fortunes, and some family differences, it had never been darkened by so much as the shadow of a cloud. But people said that if Stephen Magnusson and Oscar Neilsen ever ceased to be friends they would become the bitterest of enemies.
They went through the Latin School together as boys, and were two of four Icelandic students who were sent with stipends to the University at Copenhagen. That was in the days when student life was not so regular as it