"This has been such a fearful ordeal to you, dear Fluella," said the young man, smilingly, "that I shall probably never be able again to induce you to leave home to cross the ocean, either for health or pleasure, shall I?" "For pleasure, no, my dear husband," affectionately responded the other; "no, with my happy New England home, never, for pleasure, Claud." "But this was for _health_," rejoined Elwood. "I have never told you how much I was concerned about you last summer, or that your physician warned me, as cold weather approached, he could not answer for your life through another winter at the North. It was this only that led me to urge you to accompany me to Cuba, to remain there till I came back for you in the spring, as I have now done. And, to say nothing of the gains which my two trips will add to the estate of which I am heir in expectation,--or rather, as my good uncle will have it, in possession with him,--to say nothing of this, I shall always be thankful for your coming, for it has so evidently restored you, I had almost said, to more of health and beauty than I have seen you exhibiting for the whole two and a half happy years of our married life." "Thank you, Claud, for the beautiful part of it," said the happy wife, snapping her handkerchief in his face, with an air of mock resentment; "but I am thinking of home. When shall we reach there?" "Well, let us calculate," replied the husband, beginning to catch the affectionate animation of the other: "this is the 22d of April; and I think I can promise you the enjoyment of a May-day in New England." "I hold you to that, sir," playfully rejoined the wife, "for I wish to be preparing for our summer residence at your cottage on my native lakes. My illness deprived me of that pleasure last summer, you know, husband mine." "Yes," said he, with kindling enthusiasm, "we will go, Fluella. I want to see the good old chief; I want to enjoy the visit I have promised me from my friend Carvil; I want to hear Phillips discourse on woodcraft, and Chanticleer Codman wake the echoes of the lakes by his marvellous crowing. Yes, yes, we will go, and make uncle and mother go with us, this time." "Uncle and mother!" cried Fluella, laughingly; "how odd that is getting to sound, Suppose I call your mother aunt? Have they not now been married long enough to be both entitled to the more endearing names of father and mother? and are they not happy enough and good enough to merit the dearest names?" "Yes," answered Elwood, "I will correct the habit, if you really wish it. Yes, yes; the once-styled crusty old bachelor, Arthur Elwood, and my mother, are indeed a happy couple. Did you ever know a happier?" "Yes, one," replied the hesitating, blushing wife, drawing down her husband's head, and slyly imprinting a kiss on his cheek.