"Then I shall not need it," said Phil, quickly.
"Oh, yes, you will! You confess already that Florida, and all that's happened to us since we've been here, seems like a dream—so how can I hope to be remembered unless I leave some reminder of my naughty little self with you? I asked Uncle Walter to get it made for me when we were last at Jacksonville, and he did, and here it is, and it's yours to keep always, if you care for it, Phil."
She took from her pocket, carefully wrapped in pink tissue paper, a purple velvet box, opened it and took from it a beautiful blue-and-gold enameled locket, set round with pearls, and as perfect in every respect as the jeweler's art could make it.
"It has my picture in it. I thought you might like to have it, though it's not much, and I am nobody in particular."
"Nobody? Why, you are everybody to me, Lelia," he said, taking the locket with a kind of reverent hesitancy and opening it with as much care as if he feared it might fall to pieces in his grasp or vanish entirely, like the enchanted ring in the fairy tale.
The lovely little face it portrayed was Lelia's own, and when he had looked at it for fully five minutes, with eyes expressive of the most unbounded delight, he shut the glittering cases, replaced the locket in its little velvet box, and said, very earnestly:
"The money I borrowed, and it's now paid; but the picture is mine. Your gift, Lelia, and yours alone?"
"Yes, I thought of it. My gift alone, and I'm glad if it pleases you."
"Well, it does—lots, and I shall keep it as long as I live."
"And this money," turning the envelope over in her hand, and regarding it curiously "what shall I do with it, Phil?"