"You did
not leave her abroad, did you?"

"Oh, no, my dear Mrs. Coates! I am really here on my darling's
account," Lucy answered with a sigh. "My old home is only a short
distance from here. But the air does not agree with me there, and so I
came here to get a breath of the real sea. Ellen is with her aunt, my
dear sister Jane. I wanted to bring her, but really I hadn't the heart
to take her from them; they are so devoted to her. Max loves her
dearly. He drives me over there almost every day. I really do not know
how I could have borne all the sorrows I have had this year without
dear Max. He is like a brother to me, and SO thoughtful. You know we
have known each other since we were children. They tell such dreadful
stories, too, about him, but I have never seen that side of him, he's a
perfect saint to me."

From that time on Mrs. Coates was her loyal mouthpiece and devoted
friend. Being separated from one's child was one of the things she
could not brook; Lucy was an angel to stand it as she did. As for
Max--no other woman had ever so influenced him for good, nor did she
believe any other woman could.

At the end of the second week a small fly no larger than a pin's head
began to develop in the sunshine of their amber. It became visible to
the naked eye when Max suddenly resolved to leave his drag, his tiger,
his high-stepping grays, and his fair companion, and slip over to
Philadelphia--for a day or two, he explained. His lawyer needed him, he
said, and then again he wanted to see his sister Sue, who had run down
to Walnut Hill for the day. (Sue, it might as well be stated, had not
yet put in an appearance at Beach Haven, nor had she given any notice
of her near arrival; a fact which had not disturbed Lucy in the least
until she attempted to explain to Jane.)

"I've got to pull up, little woman, and get out for a few days," Max
had begun. "Morton's all snarled up, he writes me, over a mortgage, and
I must straighten it out. I'll leave Bones [the tiger] and everything
just as it is. Don't mind, do you?"

"Mind! Of course I do!" retorted Lucy. "When did you get this
marvellous idea into that wonderful brain of yours, Max? I intended to
go to Warehold myself to-morrow." She spoke with her usual good-humor,
but with a slight trace of surprise and disappointment in her tone.

"When I opened my mail this morning; but my going won't make any
difference about Warehold. Bones and the groom will take care of you."

Lu