ou refuse to take the kiss?"

He laughed.

"You were a child then," he said. "And I was not"----

"Was not?"----

Here the boat swung round at her moorings, and the shock prevented Mr.
Raleigh's finishing his sentence.

"Ursule is with us, or on the other one?" she asked.

"With us."

"That is fortunate. She is all I have remaining, by which to prove my
identity."

"As if there could be two such maidens in the world!"

Marguerite left him, a moment, to give Captain Tarbell her address, and
returning, they were shortly afterward seated side by side in a coach,
Capua and Ursule following in another. As they stopped at the destined
door, Mr. Raleigh alighted and extended his hand. She lingered a moment
ere taking it,--not to say adieu, nor to offer him cheek or lip again.

"_Que je te remercie!_" she murmured, lifting her eyes to his. "_Que je
te trouve bon!_" and sprang before him up the steps.

He heard her father meet her in the hall; Ursule had already joined
them; he reentered the coach and rolled rapidly beyond recall.

The burning of the Osprey did not concern Mr. Raleigh's
business-relations. Carrying his papers about him, he had personally
lost thereby nothing of consequence. He refreshed himself, and proceeded
at once to the transactions awaiting him. In a brief time he found that
affairs wore a different aspect from that for which he had been
instructed, and letters from the house had already arrived, by the
overland route, which required mutual reply and delay before he could
take further steps; so that Mr. Raleigh found himself with some months
of idleness upon his hands, in a land with not a friend. There lay a
little scented billet, among the documents on his table, that had at
first escaped his attention; he took it up wonderingly, and broke the
seal. It was from his Cousin Kate, and had been a few days before him.
Mrs. McLean had heard of his expected arrival, it said, and begged him,
if he had any time to spare, to spend it with her in his old home by the
lake, whither every summer they had resorted to meditate on the virtues
of the departed. There was added, in a different hand, whose delicate
and pointed characters seemed singularly familiar,--

"Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie,
brave Charlie!

"Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine
wi' McLean!"

Mr. Raleigh looked at the matter a few moments; he did not think it best
to remain long in the city; he w