So it came about that when Madge held out her fair hand appealingly to me, and when Dorothy said, "Please come home with us, Cousin Malcolm," I offered my hand to Sir George, and with feeling said, "Let us make this promise to each other: that nothing hereafter shall come between us." "I gladly promise," responded the generous, impulsive old man.

"Dorothy, Madge, and you are all in this world whom I love.

Nothing shall make trouble between us.

Whatever happens, we will each forgive." The old gentleman was in his kindest, softest mood.
"Let us remember the words," said I.
"I give my hand and my word upon it," cried Sir George.
How easy it is to stake the future upon a present impulse.

But when the time for reckoning comes,--when the future becomes the present,--it is sometimes hard to pay the priceless present for the squandered past.