ught it a rather foolish choice. No doubt but that Giles Leverett
was back of it all.

They told Cousin Eunice and Miss Winn. The former cried for sheer joy.
She seemed older than her years, but she was well and bid fair to live
years yet.

"Then you will never go away. I could not live without you, and as for
Chilian----"

"It would only be half a life," returned the lover, and he kissed Cousin
Eunice.

Miss Winn hardly knew whether to be pleased or not. She liked Mr.
Saltonstall very much for his gayety, good humor, and fine presence, and
then he had the divine gift of youth to match hers. Would she not tire
of Chilian Leverett's grave life?

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PASSING OF OLD SALEM

After all, they were foolish lovers. She did not hoard up any sweetness.
If he could not look forward to so many years, she must give him a
double portion. That was her only regret about him, and she never
confessed that.

He was surprised at himself. If she had loved another, the wound of
loneliness must have bled inwardly until it sapped his life. Oh, how
daintily sweet she was! Every day he found some new trait.

"You see," she explained to Miss Winn, "we shall all keep together.
Father trusted you to the uttermost, and you have been nobly loyal. I
couldn't do without you. And no one could look so well after Cousin
Eunice, who will keep growing older."

That was true enough. She was very well content in her home, and at her
time of life did not care to try a new one. Cynthia was almost like a
child to her.

Meanwhile matters had not gone prosperously with old Salem, England had
claimed her right of search, against which the country strongly
protested. The British government issued orders, and the French Emperor
decrees, forbidding ships of neutrals to enter the ports, or engage in
trade with their respective enemies. This crippled the trade of Salem.
Then there had been the embargo, which for a while closed the ports. But
the town went on improving. Fortunes had been made and now were being
spent. But much of the shipping lay idle. Yet the social life went on,
there was marrying and giving in marriage.

Of course, there was some gossip about the Saltonstall fiasco. No one,
at least very few, supposed a sensible girl would give up such an
opportunity to settle herself. Miss Cynthia would no doubt use her best
efforts to get him back. She seemed superbly indifferent to the gossip.

At first Chilian insisted upon