"I feel that I do, mother, but you have always seemed to me so perfect that it is difficult to realize that it can be so with you," said the lad, turning upon her eyes filled with ardent love and admiration.
"That is doubtless because your eyes are blinded by filial love, my dear boy," she returned, with her sweet and loving smile.
They presently reached the house, and Walter set about his packing, under his mother's supervision, which made the work seem but a pleasant pastime. It did not take long and, seated together in one of the porches, they had time before the return of the others for a confidential chat, such as Walter dearly loved to have with his mother.
Then came the call to supper, and the meal was scarcely over when the hack was announced as at the door; there were hasty leave-takings, his mother's the last for Walter. She strained him to her heart with some whispered words of love, while he embraced her with ardent affection, and in a moment more he was in the hack, with Mr. Keith by his side, and they were driving rapidly away toward the city to take the night train for New York.
The shades of evening had begun to fall. A cool breeze made the brightly lighted parlor more attractive than the porches, and there the older ones gathered, while the mothers saw their weary little ones to bed. The gentlemen had their newspapers, Mrs. Dinsmore and Mrs. Travilla their fancy work, while the four young girls, in a group by themselves, chatted and laughed together, discussing the sights and scenes through which they had passed that day, and the bits of history connected with them.
The captain presently threw aside his paper, and taking a vacant seat on the sofa beside his daughter Grace, asked in tender tones, as he passed an arm about her and drew her close, if she felt very weary from the day's exertions.
"Not so very, papa dear," she answered, laying her head on his shoulder and smiling up into the eyes bent so lovingly upon her. "I think I never had a better time. Have we been to all the places of interest now?"
"Not quite all," he replied; "there are a few others to which we may take pleasant little jaunts in the week or so we expect to tarry here."
"Vaucluse for one, I should say," remarked Mr. Embury, laying aside his paper and joining in the talk.