fely over the
mysterious ocean on whose shore they have lingered and gazed and wished!

The conversation that followed it would be vain to report, even if
it were possible; for the force of ejaculations depends so much
on _tone_,--which our types do not know how to convey; and their
punctuation-marks, I fear, were such as are not in use in any
well-regulated printing-office. In due time it came to an end; and when
Greenleaf took his unwilling departure, having repeatedly said good-bye,
with the usual confirmation, he could no more remember what had been
said in that miraculous hour than a bee flying home from a garden could
tell you about the separate blossoms from which he (the Sybarite!) had
gathered his freight of flower-dust.

One thing only he heard which the wisely incurious reader will care
to know. Alice had met her cousin, Walter Monroe, the day before, had
received a proper scolding for her absurd independence, and, after a
frank settlement of the heart-question which came up on the day of her
flight, had promised at once to return to his house,--where, for the
brief remainder of our story, she is to be found. Let us wish her
joy,--and the kind, motherly aunt, also.

Greenleaf went directly to Easelmann's room, opened the door, and spread
his arms.

"Have you a strawberry-mark?" he shouted.

"No."

"Then you are my long-lost brother! Come to my arms!"

Easelmann laughed long and loudly.

"Forgive my nonsense, Easelmann. I know I am beside myself and ready for
any extravagance,--I am so full of joy. I feared, in coming along the
street, that I should break out into singing, or fall to dancing, like
the Scriptural hills."

"Then you have succeeded, and the girl is yours! I forgive your stupid
old joke. You can say and do just what you like. You have a right to
be jolly, and to make a prodigious fool of yourself, if you want to. I
should like to have heard you. You were very poetical, quoted Tennyson,
fell on your knees, and perhaps blubbered a little. You _are_
sentimental, you know."

"I am happy, I know, and I don't care whether you think me sentimental
or not."

"Well, I wish you joy anyhow. Let us make a night of it. 'It is our
royal pleasure to be'--imagine the rest of the line. 'Now is the winter
of our discontent.' 'My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne.' Come,
let us make ready, and we'll talk till

"'Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty'--