, seems like a dream," he said, presently--"a
strange, exciting dream."

"Does it?" She looked up at him in undisguised surprise. "It does not
seem so to me; it is all real--as real as my life, as the sea, as the
earth--but that is because I am a girl, I suppose, and girls are not so
forgetful as boys are, so I've heard people say."

You would never have thought her a child to look at her as she spoke.
Her eyes were so earnest, her voice so grave, her manner so composed and
considering.

Her fun and prattle with Bess, her little quarrels and tart replies, her
generous, happy, winning, self-willed ways, were as if they had never
been, and in their place came resignation, reserve, pride and a
little--only a little--regret and sorrow.

"I have something for you," she said, after another awkward
pause--"something that will help you to remember me when I am gone."

"Then I shall not need it," said Phil, quickly.

"Oh, yes, you will! You confess already that Florida, and all that's
happened to us since we've been here, seems like a dream--so how can I
hope to be remembered unless I leave some reminder of my naughty little
self with you? I asked Uncle Walter to get it made for me when we were
last at Jacksonville, and he did, and here it is, and it's yours to keep
always, if you care for it, Phil."

She took from her pocket, carefully wrapped in pink tissue paper, a
purple velvet box, opened it and took from it a beautiful blue-and-gold
enameled locket, set round with pearls, and as perfect in every respect
as the jeweler's art could make it.

"It has my picture in it. I thought you might like to have it, though
it's not much, and I am nobody in particular."

"Nobody? Why, you are everybody to me, Lelia," he said, taking the
locket with a kind of reverent hesitancy and opening it with as much
care as if he feared it might fall to pieces in his grasp or vanish
entirely, like the enchanted ring in the fairy tale.

The lovely little face it portrayed was Lelia's own, and when he had
looked at it for fully five minutes, with eyes expressive of the most
unbounded delight, he shut the glittering cases, replaced the locket in
its little velvet box, and said, very earnestly:

"The money I borrowed, and it's now paid; but the picture is mine.
_Your_ gift, Lelia, and yours alone?"

"Yes, I thought of it. My gift alone, and I'm glad if it pleases you."

"Well, it does--lots, and I shall keep it as long as I live."

"And