“I want to go where you and I can be by ourselves, and where I cannot do any mischief,” she said, with a sob of pain, and he knew beyond a doubt that Ralph Meredith had proposed and been rejected. “Mischief! tut, tut, little one! What has made you so unhappy? Have you sent our young friend away in sorrow?” Star nodded her head in reply; she could not find voice to answer him. “He is a fine young man—he is a _worthy_ young man,” Mr. Rosevelt said, gently. “Oh, I _know_ it, Uncle Jacob; but—_my heart is dead_, and it can never live again. Don’t blame me, please—_you_ know all about it, and you know that I could not help it and be true to him and myself,” she returned, in deep distress. “You have done everything to make me happy,” she went on, a little more calmly, “and I thought I was beginning to be content and to enjoy life once more; but I cannot endure many scenes like what transpired to-night. Let us go home, where I can go to work again, and in my duties there forget, if possible, the misery of the past, which I have been made to live over again to-night.” “We will leave Newport to-morrow, if you wish,” Mr. Rosevelt said, after a little thought; “but we will not go back to New York just yet—we will spend two or three weeks in sightseeing first. We will go to the White Mountains, from there to Montreal, then down the St. Lawrence and the lake to Niagara, and then home. That will give us a change and a nice little trip, besides a knowledge of something of the country. It is a long time since I went over that ground, and I think I should enjoy the journey, if the idea pleases you.” He was not going to let her go back to New York and bury herself at home, where she would brood over her trouble and grow pale, thin, and hollow-eyed again; so he put it in the form of a favor to himself. Star assented, thinking if the trip would give him pleasure she would not say “nay.” She only longed to get away from Newport; it would be a change, and a spirit of unrest had suddenly possessed her. So it was arranged that they should leave the gay resort the next day but one. “And, Uncle Jacob,” Star pleaded, as they were about to retire for the night, “let us not say much about it until to-morrow; let us get away as quietly as possible.” “Very well; we will leave the announcement of our departure as long as we can, without appearing to _run_ away,” he answered, understanding her motive. The next morning Star sought Miss Meredith, and confessed, with many tears, her rejection of her brother. “I knew he would tell you,” she said, “but I cannot bear that you should blame me, Grace. I have not meant to wrong your brother, and I would give much to make him as happy and free from pain as he was before he knew me. Do not take your friendship from me on account of it, for I need it more than I ever did before.”