"Shame, shame!" cried Horace, pointing his index finger at his sister; "before I'd sneak off to a gypsy that way!"
"That will do, my son," remarked Captain Clifford. "You may finish your dinner."
"O, pa," said Grace, pushing back her chair, and burying her face in her handkerchief, "we all promised not to tell, you know, and I wouldn't, not for my right hand; and here's Isa, pa, she's gone and broken her word."
"Wrong, I grant," replied Captain Clifford, with a provoking smile; "there should he honor even among thieves."
Grace winced at this proverb. The subject was now dropped, for what
Mrs. Clifford said to her daughter she preferred to say to her alone.
——-
Cassy Hallock came home. Her father, mother, and brother Johnny were at the wharf to meet her.
"Where's Gracie?" was her first salutation, after she had quietly kissed her relatives.
"Why, my dear, I've hardly seen Grace since you went away," said Mrs.
Hallock.
"Goes with Isa Harrington nowadays," remarked brother John, thrusting his thumbs into his vest pockets: "just the way with girls. It's all their wonderful friendships amount to."