u for what you have done." Mrs. Mavick was
no doubt sincere in this. And she added, "Well, we shall all be back in
the city before long."

It was a natural thing to say, and Philip understood that there was no
invitation in it, more than that of the most conventional acquaintance.
For Mrs. Mavick the chapter was closed.

There were the most cordial hand-shakings and good-bys, and Philip said
good-by as lightly as anybody. But as he walked along the road he knew,
or thought he was sure, that the thoughts of one of the party were going
along with him into his future, and the peaceful scene, the murmuring
river, the cat-birds and the blackbirds calling in the meadow, and the
spirit of self-confident youth in him said not good-by, but au revoir.

XIV

Of course Philip wrote to Celia about his vacation intimacy with the
Mavicks. It was no news to her that the Mavicks were spending the
summer there; all the world knew that, and society wondered what whim of
Carmen's had taken her out of the regular summer occupations and immured
her in the country. Not that it gave much thought to her, but, when her
name was mentioned, society resented the closing of the Newport house
and the loss of her vivacity in the autumn at Lenox. She is such a hand
to set things going, don't you know? Mr. Mavick never made a flying
visit to his family--and he was in Rivervale twice during the
season--that the newspapers did not chronicle his every movement, and
attribute other motives than family affection to these excursions
into New England. Was the Central system or the Pennsylvania system
contemplating another raid? It could not be denied that the big
operator's connection with any great interest raised suspicion and often
caused anxiety.

Naturally, thought Celia, in such a little village, Philip would fall
in with the only strangers there, so that he was giving her no news
in saying so. But there was a new tone in his letters; she detected an
unusual reserve that was in itself suspicious. Why did he say so much
about Mrs. Mavick and the governess, and so little about the girl?

"You don't tell me," she wrote, "anything about the Infant Phenomenon.
And you know I am dying to know."

This Philip resented. Phenomenon! The little brown girl, with eyes that
saw so much and were so impenetrably deep, and the mobile face, so alert
and responsive. If ever there was a natural person, it was Evelyn. So he
wrote:

"There is nothing to tell;