I'll come back yet, Leena, and live very near to
you and grow tulips, and be as good an old bachelor-uncle to your boy
as Uncle Jacob was to me."
"And if a foreign wife would suit you better than one of the
Schmidts," said Leena, re-arranging his bundle for him, "don't think
we sha'n't like her. Any one you love will be welcome to us, Peter
Paul--as welcome as you have been."
When they got to the hillock where Mother used to sit, Peter Paul took
her once more into his arms.
"Good-bye, good Sister," he said. "I have been back in my childhood
again, and GOD knows that is both pleasant and good for one."
"And it is funny that you should say so," said Leena, smiling through
her tears; "for when we were children you were never happy except in
thinking of when you should be a man."
"And there sit your children, just where we used to play," said Peter
Paul.
"They are blowing dandelion clocks," said Leena, and she called them.
"Come and bid Uncle Peter good-bye."
He kissed them both.
"Well, what o'clock is it?" said he. The boy gave one mighty puff and
dispersed his fairy clock at a breath.
"One o'clock," he cried stoutly.
"One, two, three, four o'clock," said the girl. And they went back to
their play.
And Leena stood by them, with Mother's old sun-hat on her young head,
and watched Peter Paul's figure over the flat pastures till it was an
indistinguishable speck.
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