"His wife's health, delicate since her marriage, had been so much benefited by the climate of California that she advocated their remaining here, and he intended to settle in San Francisco. I thanked him for all his kindness--I did, indeed; he is a weak old man, but he had been an over-indulgent father to me in my boyhood, and why should I harbor an unkind feeling against him? But I would not go with him. He said I was taking a cruel revenge on him. That is not so, however--or do you too blame me for being a stage-driver?" He bent down toward her quickly and raised her face with his hand. There were tears in her eyes, and his arm stole around her as gently as though he had forgotten about the six horses he was guiding with his other hand. Don't be shocked, reader; there was no one on the outside of the stage but these two. And supposing even that he had pressed her head to his breast and kissed her forehead; no one saw it, or made remarks about it, except the sea waves, and they seemed rippling all over with good nature and laughter, and rejoicings at the new light in the man's eyes, and the tears and the smiles in the woman's. For a long while neither spoke; but when the stage halted he lifted her down so tenderly, and she looked up into his face so confidingly, that words seemed unnecessary between them. Then he went his way, and Stella knew that she must not expect to see him again till she should be ready to return to the city; for neither Uncle Herbert nor any one else in the place had ever succeeded in enticing him to visit their homes. But when he assisted Stella into her usual place on the morning of her departure for San Francisco, his eyes told her that his thoughts had been with her all the days since relating to her "his story." He had not encouraged any one else to ride on the outside; and once clear of the town, he touched Stella's hand with his lips, drew it through his arm and pressed it, very much, I am afraid, as any ordinary lover might have done. But when the fog rolled away, he sent out his clear baritone to greet the sun-kissed ocean, and the burden of his song was once more: "Das Meer erglänzte weit hinaus!" And the hat was not drawn down over his face when she turned to him, and his eyes were like the ocean, dark-blue, and a sunny light laughing in them. "It is my farewell to the sea," he said, gayly. "I am never coming back again. I am going to San Francisco, turn 'gentleman,' put on 'store clothes,' and enter the ranks of respectable business men."