upon her. Mrs. Marsden hesitated one moment, then stepped across
the _lanai_, peered into the parlor and entered. It was a minute before
she returned, and in that minute the decisive vote was cast, the carriage
ordered.

"Oh, I ought to have known how it would be if I left you a moment!" she
cried despairingly, on her reappearance, a little folded paper in her
hand. "But at least you must stay half an hour. We can telephone direct
to the dock and secure the staterooms, if go you must on the Doric. Yes,"
she continued, lowering her voice, "they are not going farther until
Colonel Frost comes. Mrs. Garrison explains that her sister was really
too ill and too weak to come out here, but she thought the drive might do
her good. She thought best to slip quietly away with her, and bids me say
good-night to you all."

So, when next day the Doric sailed, four new names appeared upon the
passenger list, and the last men down the stage already "trembling on the
rise," were two young fellows in white uniform, who turned as they sprang
to the dock and waved their jaunty caps. "Join you in ten days at
'Frisco!" shouted the shorter of the two, gazing upward and backward at
the quartette on the promenade deck. "Oh! beg a thousand pardons," he
added hastily, as he bumped against some slender object, and, wheeling
about to pick up a flimsy white fan, he found himself face to face with
Witchie Garrison, kerchief waving, beaming, smiling, throwing kisses
innumerable to the party he had so lately left. The hot blood rushed to
his forehead, an angry light to his eyes, as she nodded blithely,
forbearingly, forgivingly at him. "Dear boy," she cried, in her clear,
penetrating treble, "how could you be expected to see any one after
leaving--her?" But Gov.'s arm was linked in his at the very instant and
led him glowering away, leaving her close to the edge of the crowded
dock, smiling sweetness, blessing and bliss upon a silent and
unresponsive group, and waving kerchief and kisses to them until, far
from shore, the Doric headed out to sea.

* * * * *

They were nearing home again. Day and night for nearly a week the good
ship had borne them steadily onward over a sea of deepest blue, calm and
unruffled as the light that shone in Amy's eyes. Hours of each
twenty-four Armstrong had been the constant companion, at first of the
trio, then of the two--for Mr. Prime had found a kindred spirit in a
veter