"I hardly know," said Drayton, rubbing his mustache. "Pardon me if I leave you," he added, looking at his watch. "It is later than I thought."
Nothing more was seen of Drayton for the rest of that day. But the next morning, as Mary Leithe sat on the Bowlder Rock, with a book on her lap, and her eyes on the bathers, and her thoughts elsewhere, she heard a light, leisurely tread behind her, and a gentlemanly, effective figure made its appearance, carrying a malacca walking-stick, and a small telescope in a leather case slung over the shoulder.
"Good-morning, Miss Leithe," said this personage, in a quiet and pleasant voice. "I knew your mother before you were born, and I can not feel like a stranger toward her daughter. My name is Ambrose Drayton. You look something like your mother, I think."
"I think I remember mamma's having spoken of you," said Mary Leithe, looking up a little shyly, but with a smile that was the most winning of her many winning manifestations. Her upper lip, short, but somewhat fuller than the lower one, was always alive with delicate movements; the corners of her mouth were blunt, the teeth small; and the smile was such as Psyche's might have been when Cupid waked her with a kiss.
"It was here I first met your mother," continued Drayton, taking his place beside her. "We often sat together on this very rock. I was a young fellow then, scarcely older than you, and very full of romance and enthusiasm. Your mother—". He paused a moment, looking at his companion with a grave smile in his eyes. "If I had been as dear to her as she was to me," he went on, "you would have been our daughter."
Mary looked out upon the bathers, and upon the azure bay, and into her own virgin heart. "Are you married, too?" she asked at length.
"I was cut out for an old bachelor, and I have been true to my destiny," was his reply. "Besides, I've lived abroad till a month or two ago, and good Americans don't marry foreign wives."
"I should like to go abroad," said Mary Leithe.
"It is the privilege of Americans," said Drayton. "Other people are born abroad, and never know the delight of real travel. But, after all, America is best. The life of the world culminates here. We are the prow of the vessel; there may be more comfort amidships, but we are the first to touch the unknown seas. And the foremost men of all nations are foremost only in so far as they are at heart American; that is to say, America is, at present, even more an idea and a principle than it is a country. The nation has perhaps not yet risen to the height of its opportunities. So you have never crossed the Atlantic?"
"No; my father never wanted to go; and after he died, mamma could not."