"Dick, my boy, you've grown--you've grown!" was his grandfather's
comment, when Richard, with a rueful laugh, had shown the old man the
finished list, upon which, well toward the top, had been the names of
Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Carson. Of Hugh Benson, as best man, Matthew
Kendrick heartily approved. "You've chosen the nugget of pure gold,
Dick," he said, "where you might have been expected to take one with
considerable alloy. He's worth all the others put together."
Richard had never realized this more thoroughly than when, on Christmas
afternoon, he invited Benson to drive with him for a last inspection of
a certain spot which had been prepared for the reception of the bridal
pair at the first stage of their journey. He could not, as Hugh took his
place beside him and the two whirled away down the frost-covered avenue,
imagine asking any other man in the world to go with him on such a
visit. There was no other man he knew who would not have made it the
occasion for more or less distasteful raillery; but Hugh Benson was of
the rarely few, he felt, who would understand what that "stout little
cabin" meant to him.
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