I shall not dwell upon that painful farewell which wrung our hearts, and made us silent for a long, long while after the ship was tossing in the short seas of the Channel.

Nor is it my purpose to tell you of that long voyage across the Atlantic.  We reached Lisbon in safety, and after a week of lodgings in that city by the best of fortune got passage in a swift bark bound for Baltimore.  For the Chesapeake commerce continued throughout the war, and kept alive the credit of the young nation.  There were many excitements ere we sighted the sand-spits of Virginia, and off the Azores we were chased for a day and a night by a British sloop of war.  Our captain, however, was a cool man and a seaman, and slipped through the cruisers lying in wait off the Capes very triumphantly.

But the remembrance of those fair days at sea fills my soul with longing.  The weather was mild and bright for the season, and morning upon morning two stout topmen would carry me out to a sheltered spot on the deck, always chosen by my lady herself.  There I sat by the hour, swathed in many layers of wool, and tended by her hands alone.  Every nook and cranny of our lives were revealed to the other.  She loved to hear of Patty and my years at Gordon’s, and would listen with bated breath to the stories of the Ranger and the Bonhomme Richard, and of that strange man whom we both loved, whose genius had made those cruises famous.  Sometimes, in low voices, we talked of our future; but often, when the wind blew and the deck rocked and the sun flashed upon the waters, a silence would fall between us that needed no word to interpret.

Mrs. Manners yielded to my wish for us all to go to Carvel Hall.  It was on a sparkling morning in February that we sighted the familiar toe of Kent Island, and the good-natured skipper put about and made for the mouth of our river.  Then, as of old, the white cupola of Carvel House gleamed a signal of greeting, to which our full hearts beat a silent response.  Once again the great windmill waved its welcome, and the same memory was upon us both as we gazed.  Of a hale old gentleman in the sheets of a sailing pinnace, of a boy and a girl on his knees quivering with excitement of the days to come.  Dorothy gently pressed my hand as the bark came into the wind, and the boat was dropped into the green water.  Slowly they lowered me into it, for I was still helpless, Dorothy and her mother and Aunt Lucy were got down, and finally Mr. Marmaduke stepped gingerly from the sea-ladder over the gunwale.  The cutter leaped under the strong strokes up the river with the tide.  Then, as we rounded the bend, we were suddenly astonished to see people gathered on the landing at the foot of the lawn, where they had run, no doubt, in a flurry at sight of the ship below.  In the front of the group stood out a strangely familiar figure.

“Why,” exclaimed Dolly, “it is Ivie Rawlinson!”

Ivie it was, sure enough.  And presently, when we drew a little closer, he gave one big shout and whipped off the hat from his head; and off, too, came the caps from the white heads of Scipio and Chess and Johnson behind him.  Our oars were tossed, Ivie caught our bows, and reached his hand to Dorothy.  It was fitting that she should be the first to land at Carvel Hall.