"Wall, M'hala'll be, an' so'll others," answered Cely, prudently.
"But I expect likely Swan'll do well, ef he don't die. They say the
atemuspere is pison there!--especially for dark-complected folks."

To this hopeful remark Mrs. Fox rejoined, that "old Miss Day come
herself from a warm country, and 't was likely her son would settle
there for good, and enjoy his health there better than what he would
here."

"He'll look out well for Number One, anyhow!" said Cely, lifting the
lid of the Dutch-oven from the fire.

Dorcas shot an angry glance at the apple-sauce.

Nothing further passed on the subject, and Dorcas somehow felt, as she
stirred, as if Swan were already a long, long way off,--as if the ship
had sailed, and would stay sailed, like an enchanted ship, hovering
on the horizon, and never come near enough for the passengers to be
distinguished,--or else, maybe, go up into the clouds, and rest there
with all its masts and spars distinct against the rose-mist, as she
had read of once in a book of travels,--or, perhaps, even be inverted,
and stand there on its head, as it were, always: but everything must
be upside down, of course, in China. Already the thought of Swan Day
had mingled with the mists of the past. The outline became indefinite,
and softened into a golden splendor, that belonged no more to her, but
was essentially of another hemisphere. He had by this time cut loose
from home and country. Whether a hundred, or a hundred thousand miles,
it mattered not. Since she could not grasp the idea, the distance was
as good as infinite to her.

This, you see, is not exactly coquetry. But events drifted her.

When supper was over, and Dinah had gone to sleep, and Cely to visit
the neighbors, as usual, Dorcas shyly approached the subject which
occupied her thoughts, by getting the little box of jewelry, and
looking at it. Her mother called her from the kitchen, out of which
the bed-room opened.

"Does mother want me?" asked Dorcas, turning round, with the box in
her hand.

"No, no matter," answered the mother; and, possibly with an intuitive
feeling of what was in her daughter's thought, she went into the
bed-room, and looked with her at the pin and ring of Aunt Dorcas.

"Was it--was it a long time, mother,--I mean, before he came back?"
said Dorcas.

"Who? Captain Waterhouse? Bless you! they was as good as merried for
ten year, an' he was goin' all the time, an' then, jest at the last
minute, to be '