THE Highwoods and Trewmans started for New York a few hours after the lunch-party ended, and Jermyn accompanied them. He had wanted to do so, from the first, but found many difficulties in the way of saying so; for when women are intent upon a journey they find so much to do and talk about that a man, no matter how dear he may be to any member of the party, learns to his that there are times when man is uninteresting to woman.  
Jermyn finally found himself so manifestly in the way that he begged Trixy, whose dolls were packed within ten minutes of the first announcement of the departure, to go upon the verandah with him and take a long look seaward. A friend of his had been to sail a yacht down from New York, and the verandah was as good as any place in the fort from which to view the offing. Besides, the did not care to be seen again at his quarters. He feared that a secret which several of his comrades shared with him might not be as safe as it should be, and he was in no humor to be joked about the most serious interest of his life.
 
In the angle of the verandah they sat, Jermyn and Trixy, the child looking seaward through her mother's opera-glass, and the officer looking into the sky, his thoughts that afternoon having a somewhat heavenly .
 
"Oh, I believe there's the yacht—way out there! Don't you see it?"
 
"Where? What?" asked Jermyn, dreamily.
 
"Why, the yacht, of course. Don't you see that great big boat with lots of sails! That's the way yachts are, ain't it?"
 
"I suppose so."
 
"You don't look as I feel when folks is comin' to see me; though, to be sure, they don't come in yachts."
 
"I beg your pardon, Trixy. I fear I was thinking about something else."
 
"Say!" remarked Trixy, suddenly dropping the glass. "Do you know what I wish? I wish you was goin' to New York with us."
 
"Trixy," said Jermyn earnestly, "so do I."
 
"Well, why don't you?"
 
"! I suppose it is because I haven't been asked."
 
"That's a funny reason! I thought big men could do anything they wanted to, without anybody tellin' 'em they could or they couldn't. When I get to be a big woman, mamma says I won't have to ask her what I can do before I do it. Won't that be lovely?"
 
Jermyn did not reply, so the child began again to scan the offing with the glass. Then she wanted to do something else, and Jermyn was reminded amusingly of some ways of his sisters, when those estimable women were very young.
 
 
"Say," remarked Trixy, suddenly, "mamma says you great big soldiers are just like little children in one way. You never can go any place without askin' somebody to let you."
 
"Your mamma is right about it," said Jermyn, with a laugh.
 
"How funny!" said Trixy, as if talking to herself.
 
The child finally disappeared, but Jermyn remained. He wondered how he could explain his reappearance at the fort, after taking a week's leave only twenty-four hours before, should any awkwardness on the part of any one prevent him joining the party. He wished he might see Trif alone for a moment or two, but he knew better than to disturb a woman absorbed in the duties of packing. He was uncomfortable; he felt that he was in the way, but he pulled himself together by saying that he might as well be a thousand miles away from Trif and Kate as he was at that moment, while they were occupied as they were. He could still make a of looking for that yacht, for Trixy had left the glasses in her chair. Perhaps, after their work was done, one or other of the ladies might accidentally find him, and something might be said that would give him the opportunity for which he longed.
 
"Mamma," said Trixy, entering the room and stumbling over trunks, "why don't Mr. Jermyn go to New York with us?"
 
"Oh, I do wish he could!" exclaimed Trif. "Fenie, wouldn't it be be ?"
 
"Indeed, yes," the girl replied, "but don't say anything about it to Kate, for the mention of it, when it can't be done, would simply break her heart."
 
Trixy some more questions, but was told that her mother was very busy, and must not be bothered, so the child started in search of other company, and when she reached the beach she found the Admiral, whom she asked:
 
"Who is it that officers like Mr. Jermyn have to ask when they want to do somethin'?"
 
"Oh," said the Admiral, who was discussing the topic of the day with a brother officer, "why, the commandant of the fort!"
 
Trixy hung upon the Admiral's chair a moment or two, but what she heard was as bad as Greek to her, so she strayed away, and asked questions of other acquaintances, and she was gone so long that her mother wondered what had become of her.
 
When the packing was finished, to the very last article which had been overlooked, and for which the trunks had to be reopened, Kate and Fenie sat down to rest, and naturally each began to talk of the subject which was uppermost in the minds of both, and finally they became so that Fenie exclaimed:
 
"Wouldn't it be lovely if Jermyn were going North with us?"
 
"Oh, Fenie!" murmured Kate, looking as Mother Eve probably looked when the gates of Eden closed behind her.
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