"Saved money enough to defray my expenses and found a substitute for myself as master of this little school."
"Oh, bother the school! you must not always be sacrificing yourself to the public welfare, Ishmael," laughed Mr. Middleton, who sometimes permitted himself to use rough words.
"But to duty, sir?"
"Oh, if you make it a question of duty, I have no more to say," was the concluding remark of Ishmael's friend.
Thus, in diligent labor and intellectual intercourse, the young man passed the summer months.
One bright hope burned constantly before Ishmael's mental vision—of seeing Claudia; but, ah! this hope was destined to be deferred from week to week, and finally disappointed.
Judge Merlin did not come to Tanglewood as usual this summer. He took his daughter to the seaside instead, where they lived quietly at a private boarding house, because it was not intended that Miss Merlin should enter society until the coming winter at Washington.
To Ishmael this was a bitter disappointment, but a bitter tonic, too, since it served to give strength to his mind.
Late in September his friend Walter Middleton, who was a medical student, left them to attend the autumn and winter course of lectures in Baltimore. Ishmael felt the loss of his society very much; but as usual consoled himself by hard work through all the autumn months.
He heard from Judge Merlin and his daughter through their letters to the Middletons. They were again in Annapolis, where Miss Merlin was passing her last term at the finishing school, but they were to go to Washington at the meeting of Congress in December.