the western land with its dreams and realities drifted farther into the
vapors that blended the line of the land and the sea,--so slowly the
future unveiled itself and drew him on, into its new dreams, revealing,
with the inevitable progression of the hours, a life heretofore shrouded
and only vaguely imagined, as a glowing reality filled with opportunity
and power.

He felt his whole nature expand and become imbued with intoxicating
ambitions, as if hereafter he would be swept onward to ride through life
triumphant, even as the boat was riding the sea, surmounting its
mysterious depths and taking its unerring way in spite of buffeting of
winds and beating of waves.

Still young, with renewed vitality, his hopes turned to the future,
recognizing the tremendous scope for his energies which his own
particular prospects presented. Often he stood alone in the prow, among
the coils of rope, and watched the distance unroll before him, while the
salt breeze played with his clustering hair and filled his lungs. He
loved the long sweep of the prow, as it divided the water and cast it
foaming on either side, in opaline and turquoise tints, shifting and
falling into the indigo depths of the vastness around.

In thought he spanned the wide spaces and leaped still toward the
future; before him the gray-haired mother who trembled to hold him once
more in her arms, behind him the young wife waiting his return,
enclosing him serenely and adoringly in her heart.

Each day while on shipboard, David wrote to Cassandra, voluminously. He
found it a pleasant way of passing the hours. He described his
surroundings and unfolded such of his anticipations as he felt she could
best understand and with which she could sympathize, trying to explain
to her what the years to come might hold for them both, and telling her
always to wait with patience for his return. This could not be known
definitely until he had looked into the state of his uncle's
affairs--which would hereafter be his own.

Sometimes his letter contained only a review of some of the happiest
hours they had spent together, as if he were placing his thoughts of
those blessed days on paper, that they might be for their mutual
communing. Sometimes he discoursed of the calamity he had suffered, the
uselessness of his brother's death, and the cruelty and wastefulness of
war. At such times he was minded to write her of the opportunity now
given him to serve his country, and the powe