"The last day at Rutledge!" murmured Josephine, with a pretty sigh, as we left the dining-room. "I cannot bear to think of it. I never had so happy a fortnight in my life. Shall any of us ever forget this visit?"
"It doesn't seem as if we'd been here a week," said Ella, "does it?"
"A week! It seems to me a year!" I exclaimed, involuntarily.
"That doesn't speak well for your enjoyment, at all events; Mr. Rutledge will never ask you to come again. Will you, Mr. Rutledge?"
"I am afraid, Miss Wynkar, that it will be out of my power to enjoy the honor of any one's society here for a long while to come. I am going abroad in the course of a month, and"——
"You, Mr. Rutledge!" exclaimed more than one voice, and Josephine's color suffered a shade of diminution.
"It is a sudden determination, is it not, sir?" asked Phil.
"No, I have been thinking of it for some weeks, but I have not till recently had much idea of the time I should start."
"Mr. Rutledge does not look upon crossing the Atlantic for a few months, as any way more formidable than going to town for a night, he has been such a traveller," said Mrs. Churchill, with admirable composure; but I knew the effort that it cost her. "You do not think of being absent long, I suppose?"
"It is uncertain; I shall make my arrangements to be gone for about two years, but something may occur to detain me longer, in which case I can easily settle all things here by letter. I have trusty persons in my employ, and I think there is no chance of my presence being necessary at home for a long while to come."