She was very, very deeply touched, and she could not keep the tears
out of her eyes as she leaned towards him and said in tones that
no others could hear:
"I am no longer the friendless orphan I was when I came to the Lake
House. In Mr. Van Berg I have found a friend whom I can trust; in
you, Ik Stanton, a brother that I can love."
If the reader's patience has not failed him up to this long-deferred
moment, it shall now be rewarded by a few brief, concluding words.
Mrs. Mayhew felt considerably aggrieved that she had had so little
part in Ida's engagement with the wealthy and aristocratic Mr.
Van Berg, and in later years she complained that they were very
unfashionable, and spent an unreasonable amount of time in looking
after all kinds of charitable institutions. Mr. Mayhew drank ever
deeper at the full fountain of his child's love, and is serenely
passing on to an honorable old age. Mr. Eltinge is now beyond age
and weakness, but Ida often murmurs with tears in her eyes as she
looks at his portrait, "He is just speaking to me as he did when
my heart was breaking." Stanton's city friends say that he has
greatly changed and might stand very high as a lawyer and politician
if he were not so quixotic and prone to take cases in which there
was no money, but he receives letters from New England which seem
to compensate him for lack of large fees.
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