Valentine looked from time to time at John and at Emily, and considered also the situation, thinking, “He loves her so, his contentment with her is so supreme, that nothing of dead and done crime or misery will hang about his thoughts long.  He will get away, and in absence forget it, as I shall.  I’ll take a long look, though, now, at these high gables, with the sunshine on them, and at those strange casements, and these white trees.  I know I shall never regret them, but I shall wish to remember what they were like.”

He looked long and earnestly at the place and at the group.  The faces of some were as grave as their father’s.

Little Hugh, having a great matter to decide, could hear and see nothing that passed.  What should he give Crayshaw for a keepsake?  The best thing he had was his great big plank, that he had meant to make into a see-saw.  It was such a beauty!  Cray loved carpentering.  Now, the question was—­Cray would like it, no doubt, but would the ship take it over?  How could it be packed?

Next to him sat Gladys, and what she felt and thought she hardly knew herself.  A certain link was to be snapped asunder, which, like some growing tendril, had spread itself over and seemed to unite two adjacent trees.

Cray was in very high spirits at the thought of going home.  She felt she might be dull when he was gone.

She had read his letter to Johnnie; there was in it only a very slight allusion to her.  She had told him how the German governess had begun one to her, “Girl of my heart.”  He had not answered, but he showed thus that he had read her anecdote.

His letter to Johnnie ran as follows:—­

“Augustus John of my heart,—­When I heard I was going home to America, I heaved up one of the largest sighs that ever burst from a young-manly bosom.  I’m better now, thank you.  In short, I feel that if I were to be deprived of the fun of the voyage, it would blight a youth of heretofore unusual promise.

“George Crayshaw, when he saw my dismay at the notion of leaving this little island (into which, though you should penetrate to the very centre, you could never escape the salt taste of the sea-air on your lips), said he was ashamed of me.  The next day, when I was furious because he declared that we couldn’t sail for three weeks on account of packing the rubbish he has collected, he said so again.  There is a great want of variety in that citizen,” &c.

Gladys was roused from her cogitations by hearing Valentine say—­

“Sitting with your back to Barbara!  You’ll have to take some lessons in manners before you go where they think that ’the proper study of mankind is woman.’”

“It was I who moved behind him,” said Barbara, “to get out of the sun.”

Crayshaw replied with a sweet smile and exceeding mildness of tone—­

“Yes, I must begin to overhaul my manners at once.  I must look out for an advertisement that reads something like this:—­