"By the time I am ready to retrace my steps southward you will be again settled in New York. Will you think me presumptuous if I call at your father's house to continue an acquaintance which has been, to me, at once agreeable and profitable?" The fingers were still, suddenly. A warm glow, like sunrise, swept over cheek and forehead. A smile, slight but sweet, quivered upon her lips. Drowning in the depths, she heard across the billow a hail that spoke of hope, life, happiness. "We will all be glad to see you," she said, with affected composure. "Not half so glad as I shall be to come. Will you now, while you think of it, give me your address?" He handed her a card and a pencil. She wrote the required direction and received in exchange for it the now smooth bit of wood, which had afforded occupation to Philip for half an hour past. It was tendered in mock ceremony, and accepted smilingly. Upon the gray tablet was inscribed "Philip Benson, Deal Beach, July 27th, 1856." A playful or thoughtless impulse caused him to extend his hand for it, after she had read it, and to add a motto, stale as innocent in his eyes: "Pensez a moi!" "I shall preserve it as a souvenir of the day and place," observed Sarah, slipping it into her pocket. Twilight overtook them before they reached home, and the night was too cloudy and damp for a promenade, such as they often had in the garden walks and lane, or for the customary family gathering in the long porch. Yet Aunt Sarah was surprised that Philip was apparently content to spend the evening in the sitting-room, with herself and husband by to spoil the tete-a-tete he must be longing for. Still more confounded was she, when, after her clever strategy of coaxing Uncle Nathan into the kitchen, that the coast might be clear, she heard Philip's step close behind them. "I must clean my gun to-night, aunt," he said, taking it from the corner. "I shall not have time to do it to-morrow." With the utmost nonchalance he began the operation, whistling softly a lively air over his work. Aunt Sarah gave her partner a look of bewildered despair, which he returned by a confirmatory nod, and a smile, half comic, half regretful. After breakfast next morning the nephew-guest said affectionate farewells to his relatives and Jeannie; a grave, gentle adieu to Sarah, accompanied by a momentary pressure of the hand, that may have meant much or little, and upon the snug homestead settled a quiet that was dreariness itself to one of its inmates. CHAPTER VI.