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?"
"Oh, that's for you to say!"
"So it is; and it's for me to say, also, that it is getting late, and I
want to see the sun 'set in the sea,' as Bess calls it, this last
evening of our stay at Cedar Keys. And there's Bess now, little plague
that she is!" turning to meet the flying figure that came tearing down
the garden path, with hair streaming in the wind, and sash untied and
trailing on the ground in dreadful disarray.
Phil walked off, whistling, with the locket in his hand; and the last of
the many childish confidences that had taken place between Lelia and her
playfellow, preserver and hero was at an end.
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