“Don't it seem to you, Zelotes,” she asked her husband, “as if Albert was kind of discontented or unsatisfied these days? He's so--so sort of fidgety. Talks like the very mischief for ten minutes and then don't speak for half an hour. Sits still for a long stretch and then jumps up and starts off walkin' as if he was crazy. What makes him act so? He's kind of changed from what he used to be. Don't you think so?” The captain patted her shoulder. “Don't worry, Mother,” he said. “Al's older than he was and what he's been through has made him older still. As for the fidgety part of it, the settin' down and jumpin' up and all that, that's the way they all act, so far as I can learn. Elisha Warren, over to South Denboro, tells me his nephew has been that way ever since he got back. Don't fret, Mother, Al will come round all right.” “I didn't know but he might be anxious to see--to see her, you know.” “Her? Oh, you mean the Fosdick girl. Well, he'll be goin' to see her pretty soon, I presume likely. They're due back in New York 'most any time now, I believe. . . . Oh, hum! Why in time couldn't he--” “Couldn't he what, Zelotes?” “Oh, nothin', nothin'.” The summons came only a day after this conversation. It came in the form of another letter from Madeline and one from Mrs. Fosdick. They were, so the latter wrote, back once more in their city home, her nerves, thank Heaven, were quite strong again, and they were expecting him, Albert, to come on at once. “We are all dying to see you,” wrote Mrs. Fosdick. “And poor, dear Madeline, of course, is counting the moments.” “Stay as long as you feel like, Al,” said the captain, when told of the proposed visit. “It's the dull season at the office, anyhow, and Labe and I can get along first-rate, with Issy to superintend. Stay as long as you want to, only--” “Only what, Grandfather?” “Only don't want to stay too long. That is, don't fall in love with New York so hard that you forget there is such a place as South Harniss.” Albert smiled. “I've been in places farther away than New York,” he said, “and I never forgot South Harniss.” “Um-hm. . . . Well, I shouldn't be surprised if that was so. But you'll have better company in New York than you did in some of those places. Give my regards to Fosdick. So-long, Al.” CHAPTER XVI The Fosdick car was at the Grand Central Station when the Knickerbocker Limited pulled in. And Madeline, a wonderfully furred and veiled and hatted Madeline, was waiting there behind the rail as he came up the runway from the train. It was amazing the fact that it was really she. It was more amazing still to kiss her there in public, to hold her hand without fear that some one might see. To-- “Shall I take your bags, sir?”