es at the flag-raising."

"And have you forgotten the week I refused to speak to Abijah Flagg
because he fished my turban with the porcupine quills out of the river
when I hoped at last that I had lost it! Oh, Emma Jane, we had dear good
times together in the little harbor.'"

"I always thought that was an elegant composition of yours--that
farewell to the class," said Emma Jane.

"The strong tide bears us on, out of the little harbor of childhood into
the unknown seas," recalled Rebecca. "It is bearing you almost out of
my sight, Emmy, these last days, when you put on a new dress in the
afternoon and look out of the window instead of coming across the
street. Abijah Flagg never used to be in the little harbor with the rest
of us; when did he first sail in, Emmy?"

Emma Jane grew a deeper pink and her button-hole of a mouth quivered
with delicious excitement.

"It was last year at the seminary, when he wrote me his first Latin
letter from Limerick Academy," she said in a half whisper.

"I remember," laughed Rebecca. "You suddenly began the study of the dead
languages, and the Latin dictionary took the place of the crochet needle
in your affections. It was cruel of you never to show me that letter,
Emmy!"

"I know every word of it by heart," said the blushing Emma Jane, "and
I think I really ought to say it to you, because it's the only way you
will ever know how perfectly elegant Abijah is. Look the other way,
Rebecca. Shall I have to translate it for you, do you think, because it
seems to me I could not bear to do that!"

"It depends upon Abijah's Latin and your pronunciation," teased Rebecca.
"Go on; I will turn my eyes toward the orchard."

The Fair Emmajane, looking none too old still for the "little harbor,"
but almost too young for the "unknown seas," gathered up her courage and
recited like a tremulous parrot the boyish love letter that had so fired
her youthful imagination.

"Vale, carissima, carissima puella!" repeated Rebecca in her musical
voice. "Oh, how beautiful it sounds! I don't wonder it altered your
feeling for Abijah! Upon my word, Emma Jane," she cried with a sudden
change of tone, "if I had suspected for an instant that Abijah the Brave
had that Latin letter in him I should have tried to get him to write it
to me; and then it would be I who would sit down at my mahogany desk and
ask Miss Perkins to come to tea with Mrs. Flagg."

Emma Jane paled and shuddered openly. "I speak as a church