Yo' needn't have troubled yo'self to send up for me for mere company manners, but Sophy says yo' looked sort of 'anxious and particular' when yo' asked for me--so I suppose yo' want to see me for something." Mentally objurgating Sophy, and with an unpleasant impression in his mind of the unknown neighbor who had been helping Miss Sally in his place, he nevertheless tried to collect himself gallantly.
"I don't know what my expression conveyed to Sophy," he said with a smile, "but I trust that what I have to tell you may be interesting enough to make you forget my second intrusion." He paused, and still smiling continued: "For more than three years, Miss Dows, you have more or less occupied my thoughts; and although we have actually met to-day only for the first time, I have during that time carried your image with me constantly.

Even this meeting, which was only the result of an accident, I had been seeking for three years.

I find you here under your own peaceful vine and fig-tree, and yet three years ago you came to me out of the thunder-cloud of battle." "My good gracious!" said Miss Sally.
She had been clasping her knee with her linked fingers, but separated them and leaned backward on the sofa with affected consternation, but an expression of growing amusement in her bright eyes.

Courtland saw the mistake of his tone, but it was too late to change it now.

He handed her the locket and the letter, and briefly, and perhaps a little more seriously, recounted the incident that had put him in possession of them.