"Suppose we arrange it this way then. We will live with your father in the summer, and he shall live with us in the winter. I don't want a prettier place than Wilde's mill to spend my summers in."
"Oh, that will be delightful," exclaimed the young girl; and then she blushed more deeply than ever at having betrayed her pleasure.
"Then don't keep me in suspense any longer, but tell me if you will get ready to go back to New York with me in the latter part of September. We will be gone but a few weeks, and can be settled in the new mansion I've given orders for, before the winter is here. Shall it be so?"
"Say 'yes,' cubbie, and done with it, as long as you don't intend to say 'no.' I see she wants to say 'yes,' Mr. Moore, and since it's got to be, the sooner the suspense is over, the better I'll like it;" and with a great sigh, the raftsman kissed the forehead of his child and put her hand in that of Philip. With that act he had given away to another the most cherished of his possessions. But children never realize the pang which rends the parent heart, when they leave the parent nest and fly to new bowers. "All I shall be good for now, will be to keep you in spending-money, I s'pose. You're going to marry a fashionable young man, you know, cubbie, and he'll want you tricked out in the last style. How much can you spend before I get back?" and he pulled his leather money-bag out of his pocket.
"I haven't the least idea, father."
"Sure enough, you haven't. You'll have to keep count of the dollars, when you get her, Mr. Moore; for never having been indulged in the pastime of her sex, going a-shopping, she won't know whether she ought to spend ten dollars or a hundred. Like as not, she'll get a passion for the pretty amusement, to pay for having been kept back in her infancy. You'd better get some of your women friends to go 'long with you, puss. Here's, then, for the beginning." He poured a handful or more of gold into her lap.
"Nay, Mr. Wilde, you need not indulge her in any thing beyond your means, upon my account, for—although she may have to conform to more modern fashions, as she has already done, since moving among others who do—she will never look so lovely to me in any other dress, as in those quaint, old-fashioned ones she wore when I learned to love her. And Alice, whatever other pretty things you buy or make, I request you to be married in a costume made precisely like that you wore last summer—will you?"
The raftsman heard, two or three times, on his way up the river, from boatmen whom he hailed, of Ben's having been seen only a little way ahead of him, and he, with the sheriff, had little doubt but they should capture him immediately upon their arrival at Wilde's mill. But upon reaching their destination they could not find him. The men had seen him hovering about the mill, and Pallas had given him his dinner only a few hours before, when he came to the house, looking, as she said, "like a hungry wild beas', snatching what I give him and trotting off to de woods agin."
Help was summoned from the mill and the woods scoured; but no farther trace of the fugitive could be discovered. They kept up the search for a week, when the sheriff was obliged to return. David Wilde wished to believe, with the officer, that Ben had fled the country and gone off to distant parts; but he could not persuade himself to that effect. He still felt as if the unseen enemy was somewhere near. However, nothing further could be done; so cautioning the house-servants to keep a good watch over the premises, and the mill-hands to see that the property was not fired at night, or other mischief done, he returned for his daughter.
"Give Pallas this new dress to be made up for the occasion, and tell her to be swift in her preparations, for the time is short. It will be a month, Alice, before I see you again—a whole, long month—and then I hope for no more partings. I shall bring Mr. and Mrs. Raymond to the wedding, with your permission," said Philip, with other parting words, which being whispered we can not relate, as he placed her on the sail-boat, well laden down with boxes and bales containing the necessary "dry-goods and groceries" for the fete.