kirts and waving plumes, and some delicately gloved
hand beating its reveille upon the heart; and when every floating film
of mist along the sea, whether at Newport or Nahant, tenderly entreated
the fancy.

But we forget ourselves, and we forget Adele. In her wild exuberance of
joy Maverick shares with a spirit that he had believed to be dead in him
utterly. And if he finds it necessary to check from time to time the
noisy effervescence of her pleasure, as he certainly does at the first,
he does it in the most tender and considerate way; and Adele learns,
what many of her warm-hearted sisters never do learn, that a well-bred
control over our enthusiasms in no way diminishes the exquisiteness of
their savor.

Maverick should be something over fifty now, and his keenness of
observation in respect to feminine charms is not perhaps so great as it
once was; but even he cannot fail to see, with a pride that he makes no
great effort to conceal, the admiring looks that follow the lithe,
graceful figure of Adele, wherever their journey may lead them. Nor,
indeed, were there any more comely toilettes for a young girl to be met
with anywhere than those which had been provided for the young traveller
under the advice of Mrs. Brindlock.

It may be true--what his friend Papiol had predicted--that Maverick will
be too proud of his child to keep her in a secluded corner of New
England. For his pride there is certainly abundant reason; and what
father does not love to see the child of whom he is proud admired?

Yet weeks had run by and Maverick had never once broached the question
of a return. The truth was, that the new experience was so charming and
so engrossing for him, the sweet, intelligent face ever at his side was
so full of eager wonder, and he so delightfully intent upon providing
new sources of pleasure and calling out again and again the gushes of
her girlish enthusiasm, that he shrunk instinctively from a decision in
which must be involved so largely her future happiness.

At last it was Adele herself who suggested the inquiry,--

"Is it true, dear papa, what the Doctor tells me, that you may possibly
take, me back to France with you?"

"What say you, Adele? Would you like to go?"

"Dearly!"

"But," said Maverick, "your friends here,--can you so easily cast them
away?"

"No, no, no!" said Adele,--"not cast them away! Couldn't I come again
some day? Besides, there is your home, papa; I should love any home of
yo