Several hours were passed thus, then seeing them begin to look weary—­for they were still weak from their recent illness—­she coaxed them to lie down while she sang them to sleep.

The closed eyes and soft breathing telling that they slept, she rose and bent over them a moment, gazing tenderly into each little face, then drawing out her watch and turning to the old nurse, whispered, “It is time for me to dress for dinner, mammy.  I’ll go now, but if they wake and want me let me know at once.”

Her toilet was scarcely completed when the sound of wheels caught her ears.

“There! mamma has come!  Dear, dear mamma!” she said half aloud, and presently hastened from the room to meet and welcome her.

But instead a servant was coming leisurely up the broad stairway.

“Where is mamma, Prilla?” the young girl asked in a slightly disappointed tone.

“Miss Elsie not come yet, Miss Wilet.  De gentlemen is in de drawin’-room,” Prilla answered, handing two visiting-cards to her young mistress.

“‘Donald Keith, U.S.A.,’” read Violet with a brightening countenance, as she glanced at the first.

On the other was inscribed, “L.  Raymond, U.S.N.”

Violet hastening to the drawing-room, met her cousin with outstretched hand and cordial greeting.

“I am so glad you have come, Cousin Donald!  We have all wanted you to see Ion.”

“Thank you, Cousin Violet; you can’t have wished it more than I, I am sure,” he said, with a look of delight.  “Allow me to introduce my friend, Captain Raymond, of the navy.  You see I took your grandfather at his word and brought a friend with me.”

Violet had already given her hand to her cousin’s friend—­as such he must have no doubtful welcome—­but at Donald’s concluding sentence she turned to him again with a look of surprised inquiry, which he was about to answer, when the door opened and Mr. Dinsmore, his wife and daughter came in.

There were fresh greetings and introductions, Mr. Dinsmore saying, as he shook hands with the guests, “So you received my hasty note, Donald, and accepted for yourself and friend?  That was right.  You are both most welcome, and we hope will find Ion pleasant enough to be willing to prolong your stay and to desire to visit us again.”

“Thank you, I was certain of that before I came,” said Donald.

“And I surely am now that I am here,” remarked the captain gallantly, and with an admiring glance from Mrs. Dinsmore’s still fresh, bright, and comely face to the more beautiful ones of Elsie and her daughter.

Elsie’s beauty had not faded, she was still young and fair in appearance, with the same sweetly pure and innocent expression which old Mrs. Dinsmore had been wont to stigmatize as “that babyish look.”  And Violet’s face was peerless in its fresh young beauty.

As for the captain himself, he was a man of commanding presence, noble countenance, and magnificent physique, with fine dark eyes and an abundance of dark brown curling hair and beard; evidently Donald’s senior by some years, yet not looking much, if at all, over thirty.