hange. Why search for other
reasons when he remembered many things which had preceded their parting;
the last restless year of their married life, disturbed by jealousy and
suspicion; the long months of loneliness which she had spent during his
absence. There was answer enough for all the questions with which he had
vexed himself all the morning.

"Of course Elsie will come home in the afternoon boat," he said.

"Oh, yes; I don't think it is in yet--I have not heard the whistle,"
replied Elizabeth. "Our people will send her across the bay in a
sail-boat, no doubt. It is shameful of them to leave the shore road in
the state it is; we must either go to the village by water, or take that
long out-of-the-way back road."

"There is a sail-boat now," exclaimed Mellen, pointing across the bay.

Elizabeth looked and saw the tiny streamers shining like silver
traceries in the sun.

"It must be Elsie," she said, bringing a glass from the hall, which Mr.
Mellen took eagerly from her hand.

"Yes," he said. "I can see a woman in the boat--it is Elsie."

His face was all aglow with brotherly love; a sweet expectation kept him
restless. He walked up and down the porch talking of his sister, asking
a thousand trivial questions, and complaining of the slowness of the
little boat.

Elizabeth stood leaning against one of the pillars, her eyes shaded with
her hand, looking over the bright waters. The tranquillity and bloom
faded out of her countenance, while her husband talked so eagerly of his
desire to see the child--as he called her. Sometimes her face grew
almost hard and stern, as if she could not endure that even this beloved
sister should come between her heart and his in the first hours of their
reunion.

The little sail-boat flew swiftly on before the wind--drawing nearer and
nearer each instant--they could distinctly see the young girl half lying
back in the stern, allowing her hand to fall in the water with an
indolent enjoyment of the scene.

She saw them at last, fluttered her handkerchief in the air by way of a
signal, and after that they could see how full of eager impatience she
was. Every instant her handkerchief fluttered out, and when the wind
took that, she unwound an azure scarf from her neck and flung it on the
breeze.

When the boat neared the landing, Mr. Mellen ran across the lawn and
received his sister in his arms as she sprang on shore.

Standing on the portico where he had left her, Elizabeth reg