“Where shall I find Mrs. Legrange, sir?”

“She walked down to the glen about half an hour ago.  You may follow her there, if you please; and, since you insist upon it as a right, I will leave you to break the news to her alone.  But you will remember, I hope, that she is very delicate,—­very easily startled.  You will have to be exceedingly cautious.”

“Yes, sir;” and with a ceremonious bow the young man left the room, and the next minute was seen darting along the path to the glen.

Mr. Burroughs looked after him appreciatively, and muttered,—­

“A nice-looking fellow, and not without self-respect.  I see no reason why, in half a dozen years, he should not enter his name at the Suffolk bar itself, and stand as well as any man on the roll.  But my little Sunshine!  Confound the boy! why couldn’t he have told me where to find her?”

So Mr. Burroughs went back to the piazza, and tried to quiet himself with another cigar, but was too nervous to make any more rings; while Teddy sped away to the glen, and presently found himself in a cool and cavernous retreat, which the sunlight only penetrated by dancing down with the waters that slid laughingly over a rock ledge above, and shook themselves into spray before they reached the pool below, then, after dimpling and sporting there for a moment, danced merrily away.  At either hand, high walls of rock, half hid in trailing vines and clinging herbage, shut out the heat of day; and, through a thousand ever-changing peepholes among the swaying foliage, the blue sky looked gayly down, and challenged those who hid in the glen to come forth, and dare the fervor of the mid-day sun.

Under a tree near the foot of the fall sat Mrs. Legrange, her head leaning upon her hand, her book idle upon her lap, watching dreamily the waters that swayed and ebbed, and paused and coquetted with every flower or leaf that bent toward them; and yet in the end went on, always on, as the idlest of us go, until through the merry brook, the heedless fall, the sparkling stream, and stately river, we reach at last the ocean, calm, changeless, and eternal in its unmoved depths.

The lady looked up with a little start as she heard the approaching footsteps, and then rose with extended hand,—­

“Theodore!” said she kindly.  “I am very glad to see you; and so grown!  You are much taller than in the spring.”

“Yes, ma’am:  I believe so.  I don’t think I shall grow much more,” said Teddy, swallowing a great bunch in his throat that almost suffocated him.

“No?  Why, you are not so very old, are you?” asked Mrs. Legrange, smiling a little.

“Nearly eighteen, ma’am.”

“Oh, well! time enough for a good deal of growth, bodily and mental, yet.  So you have been at the West?”

“Yes, ma’am, and have heard some curious things there,—­some things that I think will interest you.  Have you ever thought of adopting a little girl, ma’am?”