O, Starlight, I’m sorry, but I do not see how you can possibly be of the least use in the world.”

Captain Lewis tried to speak kindly, but, big boy or no, real tears stood in Starlights eyes. “Why, do you feel as badly as that, Starlight?”

Starlight gave a nod which meant that he did feel just as badly as that, and at the same time succeeded in choking down what he feared might have proved an audible little sob.

“Well, then, let me see,” and the Captain leaned forward on his rude desk and thought a moment. They were in the cabin of the “Blue Bird,” whither Starlight had rowed over that morning, with such a favor to ask of the “Blue Bird’s” Captain as he never yet had asked of anybody.

“And yet you could do little odds and ends for me now, couldn’t you?” continued the Captain, after what seemed to Starlight a never-ending pause.

“Yes, sir,” he answered frankly, brushing away his tears with his sleeve in awkward boy fashion; “I’m sure I could save you ever so many steps. You know I wouldn’t think of going unless I really felt I could work my passage.”

“You are a proud little fellow, Job, but, then, I like your spirit, and if you won’t take the voyage as a cabin passenger at my invitation, why, then, you shall go as you propose. Of course your Aunt has given her consent.”

“I have not asked her yet, sir. I thought it would be half the battle to have your permission first.”

The Captain laughed heartily over Starlight’s diplomacy, and then they talked on for a quarter of an hour longer, arranging the details of the journey that was to be, if only Aunt Frances could be persuaded to give her consent—a pretty big if, by the way. At the end of that time Starlight, remembering that the Captain must have many things to attend to, said good-afternoon, shaking his rough sailor hand with a world of gratitude in his happy face. Then he clambered nimbly down the “Blue Bird’s” ladder, and jumping into his boat, rowed off toward New York and toward home, for, scarcely able to believe their senses, Aunt Frances and Starlight were back in the old house, with everything so nearly restored to what it had been before that those two years in the Van Vleet homestead already seemed half a dream.

And now the 15th of June had dawned, and as the “Blue Bird” was to sail that afternoon, everything was in readiness for the departure of the Bonifaces, and everything was in readiness for something else, too, which was nothing more nor less than a wedding at Aunt Frances’s. And who do you suppose were going to be married? Who, to be sure, but Josephine and Harry, and Josephine was to stay in America, and her home was to be right there in the old house with Aunt Frances. Strange, wasn’t it, that she should be willing to stay behind, when all the family were going away across the ocean to live in England? But that is one of the things that is often happening in this queer world of ours, and the beauty of it is that it is all right and beautiful, and just as the good Father Himself would have it. And so Josephine was married at noon in Aunt Frances’s parlor, and even her father was there, for it had been arranged that the ceremony should be performed when the Bonifaces were on their way to the “Blue Bird,” and when it would be an easy matter simply to carry the Captain in and lift him on to the broad lounge in the sitting-room.

There was something sad in the fact that, so strong was party feeling everywhere, that it had been difficult to find in the neighborhood the four men needed to accomplish the moving of Captain Boniface into the city and then out to the ship; four men, that is, who did not feel that they had some sort of grudge against the English officer. But Jake, the Marberrys’ man, had at last pressed into the service three others of his race, who bore Captain Boniface no ill-will. It was touching to see with what tender care the four strong fellows lifted their helpless burden, for although the Captain had recovered, as Dr. Melville said he would, partial use of his arms and hands, he was still powerless to take a single step.

Mr. Marberry naturally officiated at the wedding, and the twins, of course, were there, smiling and sweet, though possibly a little self-conscious, in their new white dresses, with soft silk sashes, tied in two exactly similar bows in the middle of their straight little backs. And the Van Vleets were there, and Miss Pauline, who looked rather mystified at the whole proceeding, and Captain Wadsworth besides, and Colonel and Mrs. Hamilton, the two latter of whom were invited because of Harry’s position in the Colonel’s office.

It was doubtless a real satisfaction to Captain Wadsworth and Colonel Hamilton to be present, though, when you come to think of it, it was rather a remarkable state of things.

Here they were attending a wedding in the very house that they had lawfully succeeded in wresting from Miss Avery, and here she was permanently established in her own home again, with the Captain out of it, and of his own accord too. It was strange indeed how it had all come about, and stranger still to think that a little girl of ten, mustering up sufficient courage to call upon two strange gentlemen several months before, had had much to do with bringing about this delightful change in affairs; but, as we all hear so often that we do not half take in the blessed truth of it, “God’s ways are not as our ways,” and the trifles, as we think them, are likely to prove anything but trifles.

It was more than a delight to Harry to have Colonel Hamilton present at his wedding, for although his employer was his senior by only a few years, Harry looked up to him with an admiring veneration amounting almost to worship. There was something about Alexander Hamilton that inspired this sort of devotion, an air, some have said, of serious, half-sad thoughtfulness, as though the cruel and unnecessary sacrifice of his life, which he felt in honor bound to make in 1804, cast long shadows of presentiment before it.



0217

When the ceremony was over, and Hazel had been the first to press the lovingest sort of a kiss on Josephine’s............