wrong, absurd as he had
been. He sat down and looked up at his visitor under his brows.

"What are you here for, Jeff? Not to complain of Mrs. Vostrand?"

Jeff gave a short, shamefaced laugh. "No, it's this you're such an old
friend of Mrs. Vostrand's that I thought she'd be pretty sure to tell you
about it; and I wanted to ask--to ask--that you wouldn't say anything to
mother."

"You are a boy! I shouldn't think of meddling with your affairs," said
Westover; he got up again, and Jeff rose, too.

Before noon the next day a district messenger brought Westover a letter
which he easily knew, from, the now belated tall, angular hand, to be
from Mrs. Vostrand. It announced on a much criss-crossed little sheet
that she and Genevieve were inconsolably taking a very sudden departure,
and were going on the twelve-o'clock train to New York, where Mr.
Vostrand was to meet them. "In regard to that affair which I mentioned
last night, he withdraws his objections (we have had an overnight
telegram), and so I suppose all will go well. I cannot tell you how sorry
we both are not to see you again; you have been such a dear, good friend
to us; and if you don't hear from us again at New York, you will from the
other side. Genevieve had some very strange news when she came in, and we
both feel very sorry for the poor young fellow. You must console him from
us all you can. I did not know before how much she was attached to Gigi:
but it turned out very fortunately that she could say she considered
herself bound to him, and did everything to save Mr. D.'s feelings."

XX.

Westover was not at Lion's Head again till the summer before Jeff's
graduation. In the mean time the hotel had grown like a living thing. He
could not have imagined wings in connection with the main edifice, but it
had put forth wings--one that sheltered a new and enlarged dining-room,
with two stories of chambers above, and another that hovered a parlor and
ball-room under a like provision of chambers. An ell had been pushed back
on the level behind the house; the barn had been moved farther to the
southward, and on its old site a laundry built, with quarters for the
help over it. All had been carefully, frugally, yet sufficiently done,
and Westover was not surprised to learn that it was all the effect of
Jackson Durgin's ingenuity and energy. Mrs. Durgin confessed to having no
part in it; but she had kept pace, with Cynthia Whitwell's help, in the
housekeeping