“Dear Philip, as you remarked, we are just about to part, and Heaven only knows if ever we shall meet again on earth. Let us not have hard feelings toward each other.” “Good-by Marguerite,” he said, suddenly rising and taking his hat and gloves. “Good-by--not yet. Philip turn: let me look at you!” She clung tightly to the hand he had given her, and held him fast while she fixed a long, deep gaze upon his face--a gaze so strange, so wistful, so embarrassing, that Mr. Helmstedt cut it short by saying, gently: “Farewell, dearest! let me be gone.” “Not yet! oh, not yet! a moment more!” her bosom swelled and heaved, her lips quivered, but no tear dimmed her brilliant, feverish eyes, that were still fixed in a riveting gaze upon his face. Mr. Helmstedt felt himself strongly moved. “Marguerite, why Marguerite, dearest, this is not like you! You are in soul a Spartan woman! You will receive my parting kiss now and bid me go,” he said, and opened his arms and pressed her to his heart a moment and then with another whispered, “Farewell,” released her. “God bless you, Philip Helmstedt,” she said. The next instant he was gone. She watched him from the door, where he was joined by his groom and valet, down to the beach and into the boat; and then she went upstairs to the balcony over the bay window and watched the boat out of sight. “There! That is the last! I shall never see his face again,” she murmured, in heartbroken tones, and might have cast herself upon the ground in her desolation, but that two gentle arms were wound about her, and a loving voice said, “Dearest mother.” No more than just that--so little, yet so much. “He is gone, Margaret, your father is gone,” said Mrs. Helmstedt, passing her arm over the head of the maiden and drawing it down to her bosom--“he is gone--gone!” “I know it, dear mother, I know it; but so also is every good and true American gone, on the same path.” “True, my dove, true,” said Mrs. Helmstedt; but she did not say, what farther she felt to be true, namely, that from her he had gone forever. That afternoon following the departure, Ralph Houston, with affectionate thoughtfulness, came over to cheer the lonely ladies. He had accompanied Mr. Helmstedt from the Bluff to Belleview, and witnessed the embarkation of himself and his company, on board the schooner _Kingfisher_, bound for Alexandria and Washington, and after thus seeing them off, he had ridden back as fast as possible, and crossed to the isle. Mr. Houston spent the evening, planned some amusement for the next afternoon, and took leave. Ten days of weary waiting passed, and then Mrs. Helmstedt received a letter from her husband, announcing that they had reached Washington; that he had received a captain’s commission; had reported himself and his company ready for service; and that they were then waiting orders. “Has my father any idea where he will be sent, mamma?” inquired Margaret, after this letter had been read aloud.