CHAPTER XVIII.
"The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!"
—Proctor.
The summer vacation brought Edward Travilla home just in time for his cousin Isa's wedding. He had grown so manly and so like his father in appearance that at sight of him his mother was much overcome.
His first, his warmest, tenderest greeting was for her. He held her to his heart, his own too full for speech, while she wept upon his shoulder.
But only for a moment; lifting her head, she gazed long and searchingly into his face, then, with a sigh of relief, "Thank God," she whispered, "that I can believe my boy has come back to me as pure and innocent as he went!"
"I hope so, mother; your love, your teachings and my father's have been my safeguard in many an hour of temptation," he answered with emotion.
"Did you not seek help from above, my son?" she asked gently.
"Yes, mother; you had taught me to do so, and I knew that you, too, were daily seeking it for me."
"Yes, my dear boy; I think there was scarce a waking hour in which I did not ask a blessing on my absent son."