PRESENT AND FUTURE.

Friendly reader, were you at a Columbia College commencement, in which Philip Touchtone and Gerald Saxton graduated, amid a great waving of pocket-handkerchiefs and a rattle of applause as the class took their places on the stage for their diplomas? No, I am quite sure you were not. For Philip and Gerald happen not to have graduated yet, though they will soon. Touchtone is a senior this year, and Gerald a sophomore; tall, wide-awake young fellows, both of them well up in their work and their athletics, devoted to their college life and (though they do not say any thing about that) to each other, as well. For Mr. Saxton and Mr. Marcy came to a quiet agreement over some discussed questions before that winter found the four of them settled in the same hotel in New York.

“Gerald and I owe the lad every thing,” insisted Mr. Saxton. “We can’t take him from[318] you, but you must let him be as much with us as is possible. I want you, for one thing, to let me be responsible, henceforth, for his education and for his professional starting-out, whatever he chooses it to be. No more hotel for him, please! I shall just count him another son of mine, with or without your consent, my friend.”

So it was agreed. Philip stayed out of college an extra winter or two, that he need not precede Gerald too much, and after the foreign wanderjahr now before them, when their graduation is over, they are to go into the law-school together.

Together (that word which means so much to all friends) they have been again up the coast, and this time the trip extended to Halifax, without let or hinderance, unlike that memorable first attempt. Knoxport and Chantico are places that alter little with years. Time runs slowly there, as of old. They found Mr. Banger at his desk in the Kossuth, a little stouter and more business-like looking than ever. Mr. Banger received them with great unction and much admiration. They walked out into the garden and sat down in the arbor,[319] and smiled, and then grew grave as they recalled the suspense that they had felt, that ended in the dramatic scene under its green roof. Joe has an interest in the hotel now, and he has married a niece of Mr. Banger, into the bargain.

Once upon a time there was a great day for the Probascos—when the two arrived at Chantico Island. Expecting them had kept the couple at the farm, almost with the inclusion of the sagacious Towzer (“His real name’s Jock, you know”), in excitement, for a week before.

“Well, well, it’s good to see you both, if you have changed everlastingly!” reiterated Mrs. Probasco. “You’re—well, you’re real sights to comfort one’s eyes, both of you!” she added impartially. They spent an evening in the quaint kitchen and a night in the old room, where Gerald had tossed in his sickness, Philip watching him in lonely anxiety. Obed’s rheumatics seem over. He talks more than he did. Philip vows that on this occasion Obed began to tell them again the story of the nautical ancestor and the wary “widow that lived on Cape Ann”—promptly interrupted by[320] Mrs. Probasco, who said that “the boys hadn’t come all the way from New York to listen to that old yarn.” Mrs. Probasco’s grandfather is still “feeble, very feeble.” But he survives and bids fair to do so for an indefinite time; and so the little island will probably not soon lose............