The Golden Butterfly

"Good news, wife; good news," he says. "Jack and Phillis are coming here to-day, and will stay till Monday. Will be here almost as soon as the note. Baby coming, too."

"Of course, Gilead," says Agatha, smiling superior. "As if the dear girl would go anywhere without her little Philip. And six weeks old to-morrow."

(Everybody who has appreciated how very far from clever Jack Dunquerque was will be prepared to hear that he committed an enormous etymological blunder in the baptism of his boy, whom he named Philip, in the firm belief that Philip was the masculine form of Phillis.)

"Here they come! Here they are!"

Jack comes rattling up to the house in his American trap, jumps out, throws the reins to the boy, and hands out his wife with the child. Kisses and greetings.

Phillis seems at first, unchanged, except perhaps that the air of Virginia has made her sweet delicacy of features more delicate. Yet look again, and you find that she is changed. She was a child when we saw her first; then we saw her grow into a maiden; she is a wife and a mother now.

She whispers her husband.

"All right, Phil, dear. – Beck, you've got to shut your eyes for just one minute. No, turn your back so. Now you may look."

Phillis has hung round the neck of her unconscious baby, by a golden chain, the Golden Butterfly. It seems as strong and vigorous as ever; and as it lies upon the child's white dress, it looks as if it were poised for a moment's rest, but ready for flight.

"That Inseck!" said Gilead sentimentally. "Wal, it's given me the best thing that a man can get" – he took the hand of his wife – "love and friendship. You are welcome, Phillis, to all the rest, provided that all the rest does not take away these."

"Nay," she said, her eyes filling with the gentle dew of happiness and content; "I have all that I want for myself. I have my husband and my boy – my little, little Philip! I am more than happy; and so I give to tiny Phil all the remaining Luck of the Golden Butterfly."

THE END