r!
Look!--I will now write you out some signs, and with them, at night,
we will hold our intercourse. This very evening I will control the
lamps at Penguin Light, and you shall read what I will therewith tell
you. To-morrow you will answer me from here; and I, in turn, will
decipher your sweet words. Will not that be a rare, as well as
pleasant correspondence?"

At the suggestion, her eyes brightened up with animated excitement,
and at once she prepared to second my plan. How, indeed, could a young
girl help approving of such a novel conception? To talk with
beacon-lights across five miles of foaming, heaving waters, when all
around was dark and dreary!--to flash from one sympathetic heart to
another the glowing signals of intelligence comprehended by no other
persons!--would not that be an achievement which would not only give
pleasure in the actual present performance of it, but also in the
recollection of it throughout future years? So, sitting down again,
she eagerly listened to me, while I, drawing a paper from my pocket,
noted down the requisite tokens, something after the usual signs
employed in ordinary telegraphy--short and simple--and left them in
her possession. I saw at once that she comprehended the principle; so,
feeling no doubt that she would well perform her part, I departed,
reading, in her pleased consciousness of sharing that novel secret
with me, such probable indications of affection, that, for the moment,
I could scarcely resist once more throwing myself upon her pity, and
asking instant assurance of my happiness.

But I forbore. Were I now to win her, in anticipation of that
predetermined Christmas-day, might it not take something from the zest
of the coming midnight correspondence?

So, controlling myself, I returned to Penguin Light. I had been a
little troubled with the idea that, perhaps, I might not be able to
manage the matter, after all; but, almost to my joy, I found old Barry
complaining of his rheumatism, hobbling about, and looking wrathfully
up the winding stairs, in surly deprecation of his approaching ascent.
Upon which I seized the favorable opportunity, and, while relieving
him, forwarded my own views.

"Let it alone for this night, Barry. Do you stay down here and make
yourself comfortable, and I will keep watch in the lantern, and tend
the lights."

"And can you keep awake, Georgy, my boy, do you think?"

"Of course I can, Barry."

Whereupon, for sole answer, Barry stu