arkson. You see if my judge had not been so lovely
the other would not have seemed so forbidding. It was the contrast did
it. I wonder--I wonder if he ever had a sweetheart?"

"Gideon Clarkson? Lots of them," said his sister, promptly.

"I meant Mr. Loring."

"Nonsense, honey, nonsense."

"And nonsense means no," decided the girl. "I thought it would be
curious if he had," then an interval of silence, broken only by the
dip of the oars. "Gertrude's note said a Paris doctor is with them, a
friend of Kenneth and mama. Well, I only hope _he_ isn't a crusty old
sweetheartless man. But of course he is if Mr. Loring chose him. I'm
wild to know how they got through the blockade. Oh, dear, how I wish
it was Ken!"

"I don't suppose you wish it any more than the boy himself," said Aunt
Sajane, with a sigh. "There's a good many boys scattered from home,
these days, who would be glad to be home again."

"But not unless they gain what they went for," declared the girl in
patriotic protest.

The older woman sighed, and said nothing. Her enthusiasms of a year
ago had been shrouded by the crape of a mourning land; the glory of
conquest would be compensation, perhaps, and would be gained, no
doubt. But the price to be paid chilled her and left her without words
when Evilena revelled in the glories of the future.

"Loringwood line," said Pluto, motioning towards a great ditch leading
straight back from the river.

Evilena shrugged her shoulders with a little pretense of chill, and
laughed.

"That is only a reminder of what I used to feel when Gertrude's uncle
came to our house. I wonder if this long dress will prevent him from
grunting at me or ordering me out of the room if I talk too much."

"Remember, Evilena, he has been an invalid for four years, and is
excusable for almost any eccentricity."

"How did you all excuse his eccentricities before he got sick, Aunt
Sajane?"

Receiving no reply, the girl comforted herself with the appreciative
smile of the oarsmen, who were evidently of her mind as to the planter
under discussion, and a mile further they ran the boat through the
reeds and lily pads to the little dock at Loringwood.

Mrs. Nesbitt shook out the folds of her crisp lawn, adjusted her
bonnet and puffs and sighed, as they walked up the long avenue.

"I can remember when the lily pads never could get a chance to grow
there on account of the lot of company always coming in boats," she
said, regretfully, "and I