Then he accompanied his guardian and the family home for the last time, to spend a brief leave of absence before starting on his first long sea voyage.
Leonidas was now about eighteen years of age, and Odalite about thirteen.
During that short visit home the two young people became more inseparable companions than ever.
That they were destined for each other was well known to everybody, and so well understood by themselves that no formal word on the subject was spoken between them, or thought necessary to be spoken.
They seemed to know and feel that they belonged to each other forever and ever.
Only when the day of parting came—of parting “for three eternal years,” as they put it in their despair—Odalite cried as if her heart would break, and refused to be comforted; and Midshipman Leonidas Force, U. S. N., disgraced his uniform by crying a little for company. But then, “the bravest are the tenderest.”
This was just three years before the opening of our story.
After their separation the young pair corresponded as frequently as possible under the circumstances.
Their letters were not love letters, in the usual acceptation of that term. They were frank, outspoken, affectionate letters, such as might have passed between a brother and sister who loved one another faithfully, and knew no fonder ties; letters which Odalite read with delight to father and mother, governess and sisters.
All went on in this way for the first two years.