and done and how to do it."

"Yes," said Philip, gayly, "I'll write tonight a complete guide to
Rivervale."

"We are awfully obliged to you for what you have done." Mrs. Mavick was
no doubt sincere in this. And she added, "Well, we shall all be back in
the city before long."

It was a natural thing to say, and Philip understood that there was no
invitation in it, more than that of the most conventional acquaintance.
For Mrs. Mavick the chapter was closed.

There were the most cordial hand-shakings and good-bys, and Philip said
good-by as lightly as anybody. But as he walked along the road he knew,
or thought he was sure, that the thoughts of one of the party were going
along with him into his future, and the peaceful scene, the murmuring
river, the cat-birds and the blackbirds calling in the meadow, and the
spirit of self-confident youth in him said not good-by, but au revoir.

XIV

Of course Philip wrote to Celia about his vacation intimacy with the
Mavicks. It was no news to her that the Mavicks were spending the summer
there; all the world knew that, and society wondered what whim of
Carmen's had taken her out of the regular summer occupations and immured
her in the country. Not that it gave much thought to her, but, when her
name was mentioned, society resented the closing of the Newport house and
the loss of her vivacity in the autumn at Lenox. She is such a hand to
set things going, don't you know? Mr. Mavick never made a flying visit
to his family--and he was in Rivervale twice during the season--that the
newspapers did not chronicle his every movement, and attribute other
motives than family affection to these excursions into New England. Was
the Central system or the Pennsylvania system contemplating another raid?
It could not be denied that the big operator's connection with any great
interest raised suspicion and often caused anxiety.

Naturally, thought Celia, in such a little village, Philip would fall in
with the only strangers there, so that he was giving her no news in
saying so. But there was a new tone in his letters; she detected an
unusual reserve that was in itself suspicious. Why did he say so much
about Mrs. Mavick and the governess, and so little about the girl?

"You don't tell me," she wrote, "anything about the Infant Phenomenon.
And you know I am dying to know."

This Philip resented. Phenomenon! The little brown girl, with eyes that
saw so much and were so impenetrably deep,