"Why should she?" asked the young man jealously. "My aunt may not be so
old a friend, but I am sure she is as good a one."

"She's more than kind! I can't understand," with a little burst of
confidence, "why you are all so good to a poor fisherman's daughter like
me?" They had risen, and he had shaken himself into his fur-trimmed
great-coat; now he turned, hat in hand, and looked down upon her, for,
though Sara was tall for a girl of eighteen, he towered well above her.

"You ask why?" he began in a quick, eager tone, then something in her
calm face seemed to alter his mind, or at least speech, for he added
more carelessly, "Do you think it so queer? But you forget you are a
princess!" laughing lightly. "Well, good-night; it is time for me to
go," and, with a more hasty farewell than he had intended, he turned,
and left her standing in the doorway.

* * * * *

The next morning he was sitting before a cheerful grate fire in his
aunt's private parlor at a certain hotel in Boston, his long legs
stretched towards the blaze, and his chin dropped meditatively on his
breast, while she, at the other end of the leopard-skin, worked busily
on some fleecy white wool-work, occasionally glancing towards his
darkly-thoughtful face.

"Ah, well, Robare," she said at last, "this is then your last evening
here?"

He shook himself a little, sat upright, took his hands from his pockets,