Cupid of Campion

“Do you see,” said Dora, “how good our Blessed Mother is? That little girl because she was in blue and white got a Mass and Christian burial.”

“Hey, John Rieler,” called the Rector fifteen minutes later, “haven’t you had enough swimming yet?”

“If it’s all the same to you, Father Rector, I’d like to swim home.” John, while disporting in the water, had taken off his shoes and thoughtfully aimed them at the head of the admiring and envious Clarence.

“It isn’t all the same to me,” responded the Rector. “Here, give me your hand. Now suppose we start.”

And as they spun homeward, Dora told her wondering parents the tale of four months on the open road.

“And,” concluded the child, “when I think of dear Ben, who died a saint, and of Dorcas and her children, who join the Church tomorrow, and of Clarence who is going to join – ”

“You bet I am,” Clarence broke in from the other boat.

“I can’t say that I am sorry.”

“To those who love God all things work together unto good,” quoted Father Keenan.

“And when I recall,” said Mr. Benton catching Dora by the arms and beaming with joy and gratitude as he looked upon her radiant face, “how four months ago, you were pale, anaemic, and sentenced by the doctor to death within a few months – ”

“What!” gasped Will.

“Yes; sentenced to death. The doctor said the child had no sort of constitution.”

“That doctor was loony,” said Rieler indignantly. “You ought to see her run. Those fawns you read about in poetry books haven’t anything on her.”

“I should say not,” added Clarence no less indignantly. “You should have seen her skipping up Pictured Rocks Hill. She never lost her wind, never turned a hair, and she’s as sure-footed as a chamois.”

“All the same,” said the happy father, “the doctor was right. He was a specialist and knew his business. He told me to keep her in the open as much as possible; he told me so the very day before the gypsies ran away with her. For four months she has lived the life the doctor prescribed – and lived it, I rather think, more abundantly than had she lived at home. Now, look at her. She is the picture of health.”

“She’s the picture of something more than health,” whispered Clarence into the ear of her big brother. “Do you remember those lines of Wordsworth:

“‘And beauty horn of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face’?”

“I don’t read much poetry,” admitted Will Benton.

“Well, I’ve often thought of those lines in regard to Dora, only I make them read:

“‘And beauty born of heavenly thought
Hath passed into her face.’

Good old Ben said she was an angel. If she isn’t she is, as the gentlemanly druggists say, ‘something just as good.’”

“Beware of imitations,” said John Rieler.

Whereupon to the manifest discomfort of those in the boat, John and Clarence set playfully to punching each other.

“Well,” sighed Clarence, as he jumped from the boat at the Campion landing, “now for a quiet hour before going to bed.”

“Don’t forget supper,” said John.

“I don’t; but that is a quiet affair.”

“All the same,” continued John, “I’m going to keep near you. If anything happens, I want to be around.”

Then came Dora with her father and mother to greet Clarence; and the child, as she introduced him, made such comments on their short but lovely acquaintance as caused Clarence to blush to the roots of his hair.

“Remember, Clarence,” said Mr. Benton, “that our home is yours, day or night, winter or summer, in any year, in any season. God sent you to our little girl.”

“I think,” said Clarence modestly, “that it was, the other way around. God sent Dora to me. It’s made me – different. Everything I see and hear now I see and hear from a different angle – and a better one.”

As they walked up toward the college, Clarence, ably assisted by the eager John Rieler, pointed out their path of progress toward Campion on his first arrival. He was at pains to expatiate on John’s delicacy as to introducing him personally to the Rector.

“It wasn’t so very wrong, anyhow,” said Rieler.

“Didn’t God send me to save Clarence from drowning?”

“Don’t reason that way,” remonstrated Will Benton, whose reputation as a student of logic was not brilliant only because his prowess on the athletic field blinded the boys to what were in their eyes less shining qualities, “Out of evil God draws good; he took occasion of your breaking the rule to save Clarence’s life.”

“I’m beginning,” said Clarence solemnly, “to lose all faith in the bright-eyed goddess of adventure. As Betsy Prigg said of Sairey Gamp’s Mrs. Harris, I don’t believe there ain’t no sich a person.”

“What are you talking about now?” asked Rieler. “Who’s Betsy Prigg? Who’s Sairey Gamp? Who’s Mrs. Harris? The bright-eyed goddess has gone to your head, and placed a few bats in your belfry.”

“John Rieler,” said Clarence, “at your age you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You ought to know your Dickens. Read Martin Chuzzlewit, and start tonight.”

“No,” continued Clarence, “I disavow here and now, forever and forever, the squint-eyed goddess of adventure. I thought I was in her hands; but now I firmly believe that all along I was in the loving hands of God.”

Father Keenan, who had preceded the party, was now seen coming down the steps of the faculty building. He was doing his best to carry off his Indian immobility of face, but with partial success.

“Clarence,” he cried, “come here.”

“Another adventure,” said Rieler.

Clarence turned deathly pale. Something had happened – something serious.

“Oh, Father, what is it?” he cried running to the side of the Rector.

CHAPTER XX

In which there is another joyful reunion, and Clarence presents an important letter to the Rector of Campion College

“Clarence,” said Father Keenan, “there’s good news.”

“Oh, what is it? Were their lives saved? Were they unhurt?”

“Just forty miles to the East of the accident your father received a telegram. It seems there was some mining trouble in the Southwest, and he was ordered to go there at once. Both your father and mother got off at a junction and so missed the accident.”

“Oh, thank God! thank God! And when shall I see them?”