"Why, we thought you'd tell, to be sure. We didn't know how sacred you considered his epistles."

"What sort of a journey did he have? What day did he get in town?"

"He didn't say much about his journey. I fancy from something he said that he met with some detentions."

"Didn't he send any messages to anybody?"

"None that I remember."

"Ungrateful rascal!"

"He succeeded, I suppose, in getting a state-room? He had some fears that he would be too late."

"He didn't say a word about it."

"Absurd! what did he talk about, then?"

"Not about his journey, nor his stateroom, nor you, Josephine; but you know there are more things, and as interesting, in heaven and earth, to us both, strange as it may seem to you."