By this time the contents of the yellow bowl were not only in the oven, but sending out of it the most savory of odors; and a few moments later the little household sat down to such a delicious breakfast as the doctor and Harry repeatedly declared they never before had eaten; so that Mrs. Hartley sat proud and radiant behind the plated coffee-urn, and Martha passed the Sally Lunn with indescribable complacency. Indeed, there was reaction on every side from the night of anxiety and foreboding. Even Mr. Hartley could not hold out against the general atmosphere of good cheer, and falling into a friendly discussion with the doctor, forgot to wear for a while a certain uncompromising look, intended to impress Mr. Allyn with the simple enormity of his transgression. But happily Harry Allyn needed no such impressing. It was impossible for any one to regard this adventure in any graver light than he, and yet, strange to say, he was happier than he had been for many a day. It had taken a pretty terrible experience to bring him to his senses; perhaps nothing less terrible would have answered; but he saw plainly enough now what a down-hill road he and Ted had been travelling, and with the realization came the decision to “right about face,” and with the decision an old-time sensation began to assert itself, and there lay the secret of the happiness. It is an intangible, uplifting something, that sensation that men call self-respect, and when they lose it they seem to lose the capacity for any happiness worth the name, and when they cannot be persuaded to make an effort to get it back again, there seems to be little enough that they're good for. Harry, however, with grateful heart found himself ready for the effort, and, fully aware at last of how much he had been risking, was resolved that regain his self-respect he would, let it cost what it might. He only hoped, from the bottom of his heart, that Ted would come to see matters in the same honest light, and be ready to make the same effort.