"But you have not heard all," continued Quincy. "Leopold has placed your two songs with a music publishing house, and you will get a royalty on them in time. He says they don't pay any royalty on the first three hundred copies, and perhaps they won't sell; the public taste on sheet music is very fickle. Then, that composer, I can never remember his name, is at work on your poem, 'The Lord of the Sea.' He told Leopold he was going to make it his _opus vitae_, the work of his life, you know, and he is talking it up to the director of the Handel and Haydn Society." "How true it is," said Alice, "that gladness quickly follows sadness! I was so unhappy this morning", but now the world never looked so bright to me. You have brushed away all my sorrows, Mr. Sawyer, and I am really very happy to hear the good news that you have told me." "There is one sorrow that I have not yet relieved you of," continued Quincy. "And that?" asked Alice, brushing back the wavy golden hair from her forehead, and looking up at him with her bright blue eyes, which bore no outward sign of the dark cloud that dimmed their vision,--"and that is?"--she repeated. "That letter," taking the hand that held it in both of his own. "If I am to get that noon train I have no time to lose." "Before you take it," said Alice, "you must promise me that it shall not be opened, and no eye but Lindy's must ever rest upon it." "You have my word," he replied. "Then take it," said she; and she released her hold upon it. He took the letter with one hand, his other hand still retaining its grasp upon hers. "I go," said Quincy, assuming a bantering tone, "upon your quest, fair lady. If I return victorious, what shall be my reward?" "Gallant knights," said Alice, as she withdrew her hand from his, "do not bargain for their reward until they have fulfilled their trust." "I accept the reproof," said Quincy gravely. "It was not so intended, Sir Knight," responded Alice brightly; "so I will make amends by answering your query. If you return successful, tell me what you would prize the most, and even if it be half my kingdom, it shall be yours." "I am content, but modern locomotives do not wait even for gallant knights of old. So adieu." He quitted the room, and Alice stood where he had left her until she heard the rumble of wheels as he drove off for the station; then she found her way to her chair before the fire, and her mind wove the outline of a romantic story, in which there was a gallant knight and a lovely maiden. But in her story the prize that the knight asked when he returned successful from his quest was the heart and hand of the lovely maiden. Jim Cobb went over to Eastborough Centre, so as to drive the team back. Before going to the station, Quincy stepped into the post office and found a letter addressed to him in a peculiar, but familiar, handwriting. "From Aunt Ella," he said. "I will read it after I get on the train."