te face and the gray shadows under his
eyes and observing Honor's manner toward him, sighed audibly and was a
little distant when she bade her daughter farewell. She loved her eldest
born devotedly, but there were moments when she couldn't help but feel
that Honor was not very much of a comfort to her....

Stephen held the girl's hands hard and looked deep into her eyes.
"Remember what I said, Top Step, 'Cross-my-heart!'"

"I'll remember, Stepper, dear! _Thanks!_" She turned to Carter and held
out a steady hand. "My love to your mother, Carter, and I do hope you'll
have a jolly crossing."

"Will you read this, please?" He lifted his heavy eyes to her face and
slipped a note into her hand. She nodded and tucked it into her blouse.
Then she stood with the _Signorina_, on the pier, waving, and with misty
eyes watching the steamer melting away and away into the blue water.
When she was alone she read the little letter.

"Dear Honor--" Carter had written in a ragged scrawl unlike his
usual firm hand--"Will you try to forgive me? You are the kindest
and least bitter person in the world; I know you can forgive me.
But--and this will be harder--can you forget last night? I promise
to deserve it, if you will. Will you pretend to yourself that it
never happened, and just remember the good days we've had this
summer, and that--in spite of my losing my head--I'm your friend,
and Jimsy's friend? Will you, Honor?"

And Honor Carmody, looking with blurred eyes at the sea, wished she
might wave again and reassuringly to the boy on the steamer, facing the
long voyage so drearily. Then she realized that she still could, in a
sense, wave to him. The steamer stopped at Naples and she could send a
telegram to him there, and he would not have to cross the wide ocean
under that guilty weight. She put on her hat and sped to the telegraph
office, and there, because his note had ended with a question--had been
indeed all a question--and because she was the briefest of feminine
creatures, and because the _Signorina_ was waiting luncheon for her and
did not enjoy waiting, she wired the one word, "Yes," and signed her
name.

"Carter got a telegram," said Mildred Lorimer to her husband. "I wonder
what it could have been. Did he say?"

"He didn't mention it," said Stephen. "About those silk shirts which
weren't finished, I daresay. Certainly not bad news, by the look of
him."

When Carter Van Mete