Like many another man's that summer and autumn of '98, Mr. Gerard Stuyvesant's one overwhelming ambition had been to get on to Manila. The enforced sojourn at Honolulu had been, therefore, a bitter trial. He had reached at last the objective point of his soldier desires, and with all his heart now wished himself back on the Sacramento with one, at least,--or was it at most?--of the Sacramento's passengers. The voyage had done much to speed his recovery. The cordial greeting extended by his general and comrade officers had gladdened his heart. Pleasant quarters on the breezy bay shore, daily drives, and, presently, gentle exercise in saddle had still further benefited him. He had every assurance that Marion Ray's illness was not of an alarming nature, and that, soon as the fever had run its course, her convalescence would be rapid. He was measurably happy in the privilege of calling every day to ask for her, but speedily realized the poverty of Oriental marts in the means wherewith to convey to the fair patient some tangible token of his constant devotion. Where were the glorious roses, the fragrant, delicate violets, the heaping baskets of cool, luscious, tempting grapes, pears, and peaches with which from Saco to Seattle, from the Sault de Sainte Marie to Southwest Pass, in any city outside of Alaska in the three million square miles of his own native land, he could have laid siege to her temporary retreat? Ransack the city as he might,--market, shops, and gardens,--hardly a flower could he find worthy her acceptance--a garish, red-headed hybrid twixt poppy and tulip and some inodorous waxen shoots that looked like decrepit hyacinths and smelled like nothing, representing the stock in trade at that season of the few flower-stands about Manila. As for fruit, some stunted sugar bananas about the size of a shoehorn and a few diminutive China oranges proved the extent of the weekly exhibit along the Escolta. Once, La Extremena displayed a keg of Malaga grapes duly powdered with cork, and several pounds of these did Stuyvesant levy upon forthwith, and, after being duly immersed in water and cooled in the ice-chest, send them in dainty basket by a white-robed lackey, with an unimpeachable card bearing the legend "Mr. Gerard Stuyvesant, One-Hundred-and-Sixth New York Infantry Volunteers," and much were they admired on arrival, but that was in the earlier days of Maidie's convalescence, and Dr. Frank shook his head. Grape-seeds were "perilous stuff," and Mrs. Brent knew they would not last until Maidie was well enough to enjoy them, and so--they did not.