due, I observed that it had been written in a new hand, a nice feminine hand, though signed as usual, "Mr. Abel Goodfriend," and there was a slightly tangled sentence in the observations at the end of the note which seemed to imply some unusual order of things. So in the following June when we were once more deposited on the little dock amidst our innumerable boxes and bags, with Abel coming down to greet us over the path that was newly glorified with columbine and stars of Bethlehem, I was not altogether surprised to find a more than wonted heartiness in his grip, and a suppressed excitement in his manner betokening events of a highly important character.
When our impedimenta were all collected and unroped on the cottage veranda, and the little steamer that brought us had wobbled off over the clear lake again, looking for all the world like some huge, clumsy, water-beetle, Abel and I settled down to accounts out on the pine-shaded, balsam-scented side veranda, I with my hat still on, Abel in his honest gingham shirt-sleeves.
It always takes time for Abel to tell things. There has to be a starter, in the way of a few
