ised dance; and Captain Yorke's face beamed, as he
said,--

"That's the best news I've heered this summer, leastways next to
hearin' Jim was likely to get well that time, for the Pint ain't the
Pint when the Governor and the Madam ain't on to it. But, Miss Amy, I
wouldn't be for turnin' your folks out afore ye'd go to the city
anyhow; for, take ye for all in all, ye're a pretty likely set, an' I'd
miss Jim an' Bill a heap."

There was no fear of that: we were tenants for the season in the dear
old seaside homestead, where we had been guests for more or less of
every previous summer; and the beloved uncle and aunt whose home-coming
from a European trip we were now rejoicing over, would, in their turn,
be now our much prized and welcome visitors. It would not be for long,
however; for, to the great regret of the whole household, our summer
sojourn by the sea would in a few weeks come to a close. I said the
whole household; but there was one exception, for father had privately
sighed all summer for our own country home, where he had his fancy
farm, extensive and beautifully cultivated grounds, and superb old
trees in which his soul delighted. We told him that a branch of one of
these last was, in his eyes, worth the whole broad ocean, in which his
family so revelled; and he did not deny the soft impeachment. But his
patience was not to be much longer tried, for we were to spend a couple
of months at Oaklands after leaving the seashore, and before we settled
down for the winter in our city home. Nevertheless, absence from his
beloved Oaklands had been more than compensated for by the roses which
the invigorating sea-breezes had brought to the cheeks of the two
youngest of the household, Allie and Daisy, who had been brought here
pale, feeble, and drooping, from the effects of the scarlet-fever, but
who were now more robust than they had been before the dreadful scourge
had laid its hand upon them.

Nor had the summer been one of unmixed enjoyment, even to those members
of the family who gloried in the sea and the seashore; for
circumstances had arisen which had been productive, not only of great
anxiety and trouble to us all, but which had involved bodily injury,
and all but fatal consequences, to poor Jim. And although his name and
character had come out scatheless from the trying ordeal of doubt and
suspicion which had fallen upon them at that time, it had been
otherwise with those of one who had been received as no ot