When he looked into the face of Roberta's mother and
felt her tender welcoming kiss upon his lips, his heart beat hard with
joy. When Roberta's father, his voice deep with feeling, said to him,
"Welcome to our hearts, my son," he could only grasp the firm hand with
an answering, passionate pressure which meant that he had at last that
which he had consciously or unconsciously longed for all his life. All
down the line his overcharged spirit responded to the warmth of their
reception of him--Stephen and Rosamond, Louis and Ruth and young Ted,
smiling at him, saying the kindest things to him, making him one of them
as only those can who are blessed with understanding natures. To be
sure, it was all more or less confused in his memory, when he tried to
recall it afterward, but enough of it remained vivid to assure him that
it had been all he could have asked or hoped--and that it was far, far
more than he deserved!
"The boy bears up pretty well, eh?" observed old Matthew Kendrick to his
lifelong friend, Judge Calvin Gray, as the two stood aside, having gone
through their own part in the greeting of the bridal pair.
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