y, that I can not think of a single thing I could
ask for except some more marshmallows. Jimmy, the young imp, my
nephew, you know, has found mine, though I hid them under both
cushions in the stateroom.'"

I had my hat off, and was wiping my forehead. A sudden burst of glory
seemed to me to envelope all the world. If there had been duplicity
anywhere, I did not care.

"I suppose Jimmy is the one with two guns and a Jap sword, eh?" asked
Davidson.

"No, the other one, God bless him! Is that all there was in the
letter, Cal?"

"Yes. What's in yours? What's the game--button, button, who's got the
girl? And can't you _open_ your letter now?"

"Yes," said I, and did so. It contained just two words (Helena
afterward said she had not time to write more while Auntie Lucinda
might be in from the other stateroom).[A]

"Well, what's it say, dash you!" demanded Cal Davidson. "Play fair
now--I told, and so must you!"

"I'm damned if I do, Cal!" said I, and put it in my pocket. But I
shook hands with him most warmly, none the less....

FOOTNOTE:

[A] (Those interested may find them later in the text.[B])

CHAPTER XLI

IN WHICH IS MUCH ROMANCE, AND SOME TREASURE, ALSO VERY MUCH HAPPINESS

We walked on slowly up the hill together, my friend Calvin Davidson
and myself, following the parti-colored group now passing out of sight
behind the shrubbery. At last we paused and sat down on one of the
many seats that invited us. Around us, on the great lawn, were many
tropic or half-tropic plants, and the native roses, still abloom.
Yonder stood the old bronze sun-dial that I knew so well--I could have
read the inscription, _I Mark Only Pleasant Hours_; and I knew its
penciled shadow pointed to a high and glorious noon.... It seemed to
me that Heaven had never made a more perfect place or a more perfect
day; nor, that I am sure, was ever in the universe a world more
beautiful than this, more fit to swing in union with all the harmony
of the spheres.... I had fought so long, I had been so unhappy, had
doubted so much, had grown so sad, so misanthropic, that I trust I
shall be forgiven at this sudden joy I felt at hearing burst on my
ears--albeit a chorus of Edouard's mocking-birds hid in the oaks--all
the music of the spheres, soul-shaking, a thing of joy and
reverence.... So I spoke but little.

"But I say, old man," began Davidson presently, "it's all right for a
joke, but my word! it was an awfully big one, and an