"You see, the boat is very new and clean, Miss," he was saying.

I upset Sally's business affairs at once, engaged Cary, and told him he must take out no one else without knowing our plans. My handkerchief fell as I talked to him and he picked it up and presented it with as much ease and grace as if he had done such things all his life. It was a remarkable sailor we had happened on. A smile came like sunshine over his face—the smile that made him look as Geoffrey Meade looked, half a century ago.

"I'll promise not to take any one else, ma'am," he said. And then, with the pretty, engaging frankness that won my heart over again each time, "And I hope you'll want to go often—not so much for the money, but because it is a pleasure to me to take you—both."

There was mail for us waiting at the Inn. "Listen, Sally," I said, as I read mine in my room after dinner. "This is from Anne Ford. She wants to join us here the 6th of next month, to fill in a week between visits at country-houses."

Sally, sitting on the floor before the fire, her dark hair loose and her letters lying about her, looked up attentively, and discreetly answered nothing. Anne Ford was my cousin, but not hers, and I knew without discussing it, that Sally cared for her no more than I. She was made of showy fibre, woven in a brilliant pattern, but the fibre was a little coarse, and the pattern had no shading. She was rich and a beauty and so used to being the centre of things, and largely the circumference too, that I, who am a spoiled old woman, and like a little place and a little consideration, find it difficult to be comfortable as spoke upon her wheel.

"It's too bad," I went on regretfully. "Anne will not appreciate Clovelly, and she will spoil it for us. She is not a girl I care for. I don't see why I should he made a convenience for Anne Ford," I argued in my selfish way. "I think I shall write her not to come."

Sally laughed cheerfully. "She won't bother us, Cousin Mary. It would be too bad to refuse her, wouldn't it? She can't spoil Clovelly—it's been here too long. Anne is rather overpowering," Sally went on, a bit wistfully. "She's such a beauty, and she has such stunning clothes."

The firelight played on the girl's flushed, always-changing face, full of warm light and shadow; it touched daintily the white muslin and pink ribbons of the pretty negligee she wore, Sally was one of the poor girls whose simple things are always fresh and right. I leaned over and patted her rough hair affectionately.

"Your clothes are just as pretty," I said, "and Anne doesn't compare with you in my eyes." I lifted the unfinished letter and glanced over it. "All about her visit to Lady Fisher," I said aloud, giving a résumé as I read. "What gowns she wore to what functions; what men were devoted to her—their names—titles—incomes too." I smiled. "And—what is this?" I stopped talking, for a name had caught my eye. I glanced over the page. "Isn't this curious! Listen, my dear," I said. "This will interest you!" I read aloud from Anne's letter.

"'But the man who can have me if he wants me is Sir Richard Leigh. He is the very best that ever happened, and moreover, quite the catch of the season. His title is old, and he has a yacht and an ancestral place or two, and is very rich, they say—but that isn't it. My heart is his without his decorations—well, perhaps not quite that, but it's certainly his with the decorations. He is such a beauty, Cousin Mary! Even you would admire him. It gives you quite a shock when he comes into a room, yet he is so unconscious and modest, and has the most graceful, fascinatingly quiet manners and wonderful brown eyes that seem to talk for him. He does everything well, and everything hard, is a dare-devil on horseback, a reckless sailor, and a lot besides. If you could see the way those eyes look at me, and the smile that breaks over his face as if the sun had come out suddenly! But alas! the sun has gone under now, for he went this morning, and it's not clear if he's coming back or not. They say his yacht is near Bideford, where his home is, and Clovelly is not far from that, is it?'"

I stopped and looked at Sally, listening, on the floor. She was staring into the fire.

"What do you think of that?" I asked. Sally was slow at answering; she stared on at the burning logs that seemed whispering answers to the blaze.

"Some girls have everything," she said at length. "Look at Anne. She's beautiful and rich and everybody admires her, and she goes about to big country-houses and meets famous and interesting people. And now this Sir Richard Leigh comes like the prince into the story, and I dare say he will fall in love with her and if she finds no one that suits her better she will marry him and have that grand old historic name."

"Sally, dear," I said, "you're not envying Anne, are you?"

A quick blush rushed to her face. "Cousin Mary! What foolishness I've been talking! How could I! What must you think of me! I didn't mean it—please believe I didn't. I'm the luckiest girl on earth, and I'm having the most perfect time, and you are a fairy godmother to me, except that you're more like a younger sister. I was thinking aloud. Anne is such a brilliant being compared to me, that the thought of her discourages me sometimes. It was just Cinderella admiring the princess, you know."

"Cinderella got the prince," I said, smiling.

"I don't want the prince," said Sally, "even if I could get him. I wouldn't marry an Englishman. I don't care about a title. To be a Virginian is enough title for me. It was just his name, magnificent Sir Richard Grenville's name and the Revenge-Armada atmosphere that took my fancy. I don't know if Anne would care for that part," she added, doubtfully.

"I'm sure Anne would know nothing about it," I answered decidedly, and Sally went on cheerfully.

"She's very welcome to the modern Sir Richard, yacht and title and all. I don't believe he's as attractive as your sailor, Cousin Mary. Something the same style, I should say from the description. If you hadn't owned him from the start, I'd rather like that man to be my sailor, Cousin Mary—he's so everything that a gentleman is supposed to be. How did he learn that manner—why, it would flatter you if he let the boom whack you on the head. Too bad he's only a common sailor—such a prince gone wrong!"

I looked at her talking along softly, leaning back on one hand and gazing at the fire, a small white Turkish slipper—Southern girls always have little feet—stuck out to the blaze, and something in the leisurely attitude and low, unhurried voice, something, too, in the reminiscent crackle of the burning wood, invited me to confidence. I went to my dressing-table, and when I came back, dropped, as if I were another girl, on the rug beside her. "I want to show you this," I said, and opened a case that travels always with me. From the narrow gold rim of frame inside, my lover smiled gayly up at her brown hair and my gray, bending over it together.

None of the triumphs of modern photographers seem to my eyes so delicately charming as the daguerrotypes of the sixties. As we tipped the old picture this way and that, to catch the right light on the image under the glass, the very uncertainty of effect seemed to give it an elusive fascination. To my mind the birds in the bush have always brighter plumage than any in the hand, and one of these early photographs leaves ever, no matter from what angle you look upon it, much to the imagination. So Geoff in his gray Southern uniform, young and soldierly, laughed up at Sally and me from the shadowy lines beneath the glass, more like a vision of youth than like actual flesh and blood that had once been close and real. His brown hair, parted far to one side, swept across his forehead in a smooth wave, as was the old-fashioned way; his collar was of a big, queer sort unknown to-day; the cut of his soldier's coat was antique; but the beauty of the boyish face, the straight glance of his eyes, and ease of the broad shoulders that military drill could not stiffen, these were untouched, were idealized even by the old-time atmosphere that floated up from the picture like fragrance of rose-leaves. As I gazed down at the boy, it came to me with a pang that he was very young and I growing very old, and I wondered would he care for me still. Then I remembered that where he lived it was the unworn soul and not the worn-out body that counted, and I knew that the spirit within me would meet his when the day came, with as fresh a joy as forty years ago. And as I still looked, happy in the thought, I felt all at once as if I had seen his face, heard his voice, felt the touch of his young hand that day—could almost feel it yet. Perhaps my eyes were a little dim, perhaps the uncertainty of the old daguerrotype helped the illusion, but the smile of the master of the Revenge seemed to shine up at me from my Geoff's likeness, and then Sally's slow voice broke the pause.

"It's Cousin Geoffrey, isn't it?" she asked. Her father was Geoffrey Meade's cousin—a little boy when Geoff died, "Was he as beautiful as that?" she said, gently, putting her hand over mine that held the velvet case. And then, after another pause, she went on, hesitatingly; "Cousin Mary, I wonder if you would mind if I told you whom he looks like to me?"

"No, my dear," I answered easily, and like an echo to my thought her words came.

"It is your sailor. Do you see it? He is only a common seaman, of course, but I think he must have a wonderful face, for with all his dare-devil ways I always think of 'Blessed are the pure in spirit' when I see him. And the eyes in the picture have the same expression—do you mind my saying it, Cousin Mary?"

"I saw it myself the first time I looked at him," I said. And then, as people do when they are on the verge of crying, I laughed. "Anne Ford would think me ridiculous, wouldn't she?" and I held Geoff's picture in both my hands. "He is much better suited to her or to you. A splendid young fellow of twenty-four to belong to an old woman like me—it is absurd, isn't it?"

"He is suited to no one but you, dear, and you are just his age and always will be," and as Sally's arms caught me tight I felt tears that were not my own on my cheek.

It was ten days yet before Anne was due to arrive, and almost every day of the ten we sailed. The picturesque coast of North Devon, its deep bays, its stretches of high, tree-topped cliffs, grew to be home-like to us. We said nothing of Cary and his boat at the Inn, for we soon saw that both were far-and-away better than common, and we were selfish. Nor did the man himself seem to care for more patronage. He was always ready when we wished to go, and jumped from his spick-and-span deck to meet us with a smile that started us off in sunshine, no matter what the weather. And with my affection for the lovely, uneven coast and the seas that held it in their flashing fingers, grew my interest in the winning personality that seemed to combine something of the strength of the hills and the charm of the seas of Devonshire.

One day after another he loosed the ropes with practised touch, and the wind taught the sail with a gay rattle and the little Revenge flung off the steep street and the old sea-wall and the green cliffs of Clovelly, and first yards and then miles of rippling ocean lay between us and land, and we sailed away, we did not need to know or care where, with our fate for the afternoon in his reliable hands. Little by little we forgot artificial distinctions in the out-of-doors, natural atmosphere, or that the man was anything but himself—a self always simple, always right. Looking back, I see how deeply I was to blame, to have been so blind, at my age, but the figure by the rudder, swinging to the boat's motion, grew to be so familiar and pleasant a sight, that I did not think of being on guard against him. Little as he talked, his moods were varied, grave or gay or with a gleam of daring in his eyes that made him, I think, a little more attractive than any other way. Yet when a wind of seriousness lifted the still or impetuous surface, I caught a glimpse, sometimes, of a character of self-reliance, of decision as solid as the depths under the shifting water of his ocean. There was never a false note in his gentle manner, and I grew to trust serenely to his tact and self-respect, and talked to him freely as I chose. Which of course I should not have done. But there was a temptation to which I yielded in watching for the likeness in his face, and in listening for a tone or two of his voice that caught my heart with the echo of a voice long silent.

One morning to our astonishment Cary sent up to break our engagement for the afternoon. Something had happened so that he could not possibly get away. But it was moonlight and warm—would we not go out in the evening? The idea seemed to me a little improper, yet very attractive, and Sally's eyes danced.

"Let's be bold and bad and go, Cousin Mary," she pleaded, and we went.

A shower of moonlight fell across the sea and on the dark masses of the shore; it lay in sharp patches against the black shadows of the sail; it turned Sally's bare, dark head golden, and tipped each splashing wave with a quick-vanishing electric light. It was not earth or ocean, but fairyland. We were sailing over the forgotten, sea-buried land of Lyonesse; forests where Tristram and Iseult had ridden, lay under our rushing keel; castles and towers and churches were there—hark! could I not hear the faint bells in the steeples ringing up through the waves? The old legend, half true, half fable, was all real to me as I sat in the shadow of the sail and stared, only half seeing them, at Sally standing with her hands on the rudder and Cary leaning over her, teaching her to sail the Revenge. Their voices came to me clear and musical, yet carrying no impression of what they were saying. Then I saw Sally's little fingers slip suddenly, and Cary's firm hand close over them, pushing the rudder strongly to one side. His face was toward me, and I saw the look that went over it as his hand held hers. It startled me to life again, and I sat up straight, but he spoke at once with quiet self-possession.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Meade. She was heading off a bit dangerously."

And he went on with directions, laughing at her a little, scolding her a little, yet all with a manner that could not be criticised. I still wonder how he could have poised so delicately and so long on that slender line of possible behavior.

As the boat slipped over the shimmering ocean, back into the harbor again, most of the houses up the sharp ascent of Clovelly street were dark, but out on the water lay a mass of brilliant lights, rocking slowly on the tide. Sally was first to notice it.

"There is a ship lying out there. Is it a ship or is it an enchantment? She is lighted all over. What is it—do you know?"

Cary was working at the sail and he did not look at us or at it as he answered.

"Yes, Miss—I know her. She is Sir Richard Leigh's yacht the Rose. She was there as we went out, but she was dark and you did not notice her."

I exclaimed, full of interest, at this, but Sally, standing ghost-like in her white dress against the sinking sail, said nothing, but stared at the lights that outlined the yacht against the deep distance of the sky, and that seemed, as the shadowy hull swung dark on the water, to start out from nowhere in pin-pricks of diamonds set in opal moonlight.

Lundy Island lies away from Clovelly to the northwest seventeen miles off on the edge of the world. Each morning as I opened my window at the Inn, and looked out for the new day's version of the ocean, it lifted a vague line of invitation and of challenge. Since we had been in Devonshire the atmosphere of adventure that hung over Lundy had haunted me with the wish to go there. It was the "Shutter," the tall pinnacle of rock at its southern end, that Amyas Leigh saw for his last sight of earth, when the lightning blinded him, in the historic storm that strewed ships of the Armada along the shore. I am not a rash person, yet I was so saturated with the story of "Westward Ho!" that I could not go away satisfied unless I had set foot on Lundy. But it had the worst of reputations, and landing was said to be hazardous.

"It isn't that I can't get you there," said Cary when I talked to him, "but I might not be able to get you away."

Then he explained in a wise way that I did not entirely follow, how the passage through the rocks was intricate, and could only be done with a right wind, and how, if the wind changed suddenly, it was impossible to work out until the right wind came again. And that might not be for days, if one was unlucky. It had been known to happen so. Yet I lingered over the thought, and the more I realized that it was unreasonable, the more I wanted to go. The spirit of the Devonshire seas seemed, to my fancy, to live on the guarded, dangerous rocks, and I must pay tribute before I left his kingdom. Cary laughed a little at my one bit of adventurous spirit so out of keeping with my gray hairs, but it was easy to see that he too wanted to go, and that only fear for our safety and comfort made him hesitate. The day before Anne Ford was due we went. It was the day, too, after our sail in the moonlight that I half believed, remembering its lovely unreality, had been a dream. But as we sailed out, there lay Sir Richard Leigh's yacht to prove it, smart and impressive, shining and solid in the sunlight as it had been ethereal the night before. I gazed at her with some curiosity.

"Have you been on board?" I asked our sailor. "Is Sir Richard there?"

Cary glanced at Sally, who had turned a cold shoulder to the yacht and was looking back at Clovelly village, crawling up its deep crack in the cliff. "Yes," he said; "I've been on her twice. Sir Richard is living on her."

"I suppose he's some queer little rat of a man," Sally brought out in her soft voice, to nobody in particular.

I was surprised at the girl's incivility, but Cary answered promptly, "Yes, Miss!" with such cheerful alacrity that I turned to look at him, more astonished. I met eyes gleaming with a hardly suppressed amusement which, if I had stopped to reason about it, was much out of place. But yet, as I looked at him with calm dignity and seriousness, I felt myself sorely tempted to laugh back. I am a bad old woman sometimes.

The Revenge careered along over the water as if mad to get to Lundy, under a strong west wind. In about two hours the pile of fantastic rocks lay stretched in plain view before us. We were a mile or more away—I am a very uncertain judge of distance—but we could see distinctly the clouds of birds, glittering white sea-gulls, blowing hither and thither above the wild little continent where were their nests. There are thousands and thousands of gulls on Lundy. We had sailed out from Clovelly at two in bright afternoon sunshine, but now, at nearly four, the blue was covering with gray, and I saw Cary look earnestly at the quick-moving sky.

"Is it going to rain?" I asked.

He stood at the rudder, feet apart and shoulders full of muscle and full of grace, the handkerchief around his neck a line of flame between blue clothes and olive face. A lock of bronze hair blew boyishly across his forehead.

"Worse than that," he said, and his eyes were keen as he stared at the uneven water in front of us. A basin of smoother water and the yellow tongue of a sand-beach lay beyond it at the foot of a line of high rocks. "The passage is there"—he nodded. "If I can make it before the squall catches us"—he glanced up again and then turned to Sally. "Could you sail her a moment while I see to the sheet? Keep her just so." His hand placed Sally's with a sort of roughness on the rudder. "Are you afraid?" He paused a second to ask it.

"Not a bit," said the girl, smiling up at him cheerfully, and then he was working away, and the little Revenge was flying, ripping the waves, every breath nearer by yards to that tumbling patch of wolf-gray water.

As I said, I know less about a boat than a boy of five. I can never remember what the parts of it are called and it is a wonder to me how they can make it go more than one way. So I cannot tell in any intelligent manner what happened. But, as it seemed, suddenly, while I watched Sally standing steadily with both her little hands holding the rudder, there was a crack as if the earth had split, then, with a confused rushing and tearing, a mass of something fell with a long-drawn crash, and as I stared, paralyzed, I saw the mast strike against the girl as she stood, her hands still firmly on the rudder, and saw her go down without a sound. There were two or three minutes of which I remember nothing but the roaring of water. I think I must have been caught under the sail, for the next I knew I was struggling from beneath its stiff whiteness, and as I looked about, dazed, behold! we had passed the reefs and lay rocking quietly. I saw that first, and then I saw Cary's head as it bent over something he held in his arms—and it was Sally! I tried to call, I tried to reach them, but the breath must have been battered out of me, for I could not, and Cary did not notice me. I think he forgot I was on earth. As I gazed at them speechless, breathless, Sally's eyes opened and smiled up at him, and she turned her face against his shoulder like a child. Cary's dark cheek went down against hers, and through the sudden quiet I heard him whisper.

"Sweetheart! sweetheart!" he said.

Both heads, close against each other, were still for a long moment, and then my gasping, rasping voice came back to me.

"Cary!" I cried, "for mercy's sake, come and take me out of this jib!"

I have the most confused recollection of the rest of that afternoon. Cary hammered and sawed and worked like a beaver with the help of two men who lived on Lundy, fishermen by the curious name of Heaven. Sally and I helped, too, whenever we could, but all in a heavy silence. Sally was wrapped in dignity as in a mantle, and her words were few and practical. Cary, quite as practical, had no thought apparently for anything but his boat. As for me, I was like a naughty old cat. I fussed and complained till I must have been unendurable, for the emotions within me were all at cross-purposes. I was frightened to death when I thought of General Meade; I was horrified at the picture stamped on my memory of his daughter, trusted to my care, smiling up with that unmistakable expression into the eyes of a common sailor. Horrified! My blood froze at the thought. Yet—it was unpardonable of me—yet I felt a thrill as I saw again those two young heads together, and heard the whispered words that were not meant for me to hear.

Somehow or other, after much difficulty, and under much mental strain, we got home. Sally hardly spoke as we toiled up the stony hill in the dark beneath a pouring rain, and I, too, felt my tongue tied in an embarrassed silence. At some time, soon, we must talk, but we both felt strongly that it was well to wait till we could change our clothes.

At last we reached the friendly brightness of the New Inn windows; we trudged past them to the steps, we mounted them, and as the front door opened, the radiant vision burst upon us of Anne Ford, come a day before her time, fresh and charming and voluble—voluble! It seemed the last straw to our tired and over-taxed nerves, yet no one could have been more concerned and sympathetic, and that we were inclined not to be explicit as to details suited her exactly. All the sooner could she get to her own affairs. Sir Richard Leigh's yacht was the burden of her lay, and that it was here and we had seen it added lustre to our adventures. That we had not been on board and did not know him, was satisfactory too, and neither of us had the heart to speak of Cary. We listened wearily, feeling colorless and invertebrate beside this brilliant creature, while Anne planned to send her card to him to-morrow, and conjectured gayeties for all of us, beyond. Sir Richard Leigh and his yacht did not fill a very large arc on our horizon to-night. Sally came into my room to tell me good-night, when we went up-stairs, and she looked so wistful and tired that I gave her two kisses instead of one.

"Thank you," she said, smiling mistily. "We won't talk to-night, will we, Cousin Mary?" So without words, we separated.

Next morning as I opened my tired eyes on a world well started for the day, there came a tap at the door and in floated Anne Ford, a fine bird in fine feathers, wide-awake and brisk.

"Never saw such lazy people!" she exclaimed. "I've just been in to see Sally and she refuses to notice me. I suppose it's exhaustion from shipwreck. But I wasn't shipwrecked, and I've had my breakfast, and it's too glorious a morning to stay indoors, so I'm going to walk down to the water and look at Sir Richard's boat, and send off my card to him by a sailor or something. Then, if he's a good boy, he will turn up to-day, and then—!" The end of Anne's sentence was wordless ecstasy.

But the mention of the sailor had opened the flood-gates for me, and in rushed all my responsibilities. What should I do with this situation into which I had so easily slipped, and let Sally slip? Should I instantly drag her off to France like a proper chaperone? Then how could I explain to Anne—Anne would be heavy dragging with that lodestone of a yacht in the harbor. Or could we stay here as we had planned and not see Cary again? The unformed shapes of different questions and answers came dancing at me like a legion of imps as I lay with my head on the pillow and looked at Anne's confident, handsome face, and admired the freshness and cut of her pale blue linen gown.

"Well, Cousin Mary," she said at last, "you and Sally seem both to be struck dumb from your troubles. I'm going off to leave you till you can be a little nicer to me. I may come back with Sir Richard—who knows! Wish me good luck, please!" and she swept off on a wave of good-humor and good looks.

I lay and thought. Then, with a pleasant leisure that soothed my nerves a little, I dressed, and went down to breakfast in the quaint dining-room hung from floor to ceiling with china brought years ago from the far East by a Clovelly sailor. As I sat over my egg and toast Sally came in, pale, but sweet and crisp in the white that Southern girls wear most. There was a constraint over us for the reckoning that we knew was coming. Each felt guilty toward the other and the result was a formal politeness. So it was a relief when, just at the last bit of toast, Anne burst in, all staccato notes of suppressed excitement.

"Cousin Mary! Sally! Sir Richard Leigh is here! He's there!" nodding over her shoulder. "He walked up with me—he wants to see you both. But"—her voice dropped to an intense whisper—"he has asked to see Miss Walton first—wants to speak to her alone! What does he mean?" Anne was in a tremendous flutter, and it was plain that wild ideas were coursing through her. "You are my chaperone, of course, but what can he want to see you for alone—Cousin Mary?"

I could not imagine, either, yet it seemed quite possible that this beautiful creature had taken a susceptible man by storm, even so suddenly. I laid my napkin on the table and stood up.

"The chaperone is ready to meet the fairy prince," I said, and we went across together to the little drawing-room.

It was a bit dark as Anne opened the door and I saw first only a man's figure against the window opposite, but as he turned quickly and came toward us, I caught my breath, and stared, and gasped and stared again. Then the words came tumbling over each other before Anne could speak.

"Cary!" I cried. "What are you doing here—in those clothes?"

Poor Anne! She thought I had made some horrid mistake, and had disgraced her. But I forgot Anne entirely for the familiar brown eyes that were smiling, pleading into mine, and in a second he had taken my hand and bending over, with a pretty touch of stateliness, had kissed it, and the charm that no one could resist had me fast in its net.

"Miss Walton! You will forgive me? You were always good to me—you won't lay it up against me that I'm Richard Leigh and not a picturesque Devonshire sailor! You won't be angry because I deceived you! The devil tempted me suddenly and I yielded, and I'm glad. Dear devil! I never should have known either of you if I had not."

There were more of the impetuous sentences that I cannot remember, and somewhere among them Anne gathered that she was not the point of them, and left the room like a slighted but still reigning princess. It was too bad that any one should feel slighted, but if it had to be, it was best that it should be Anne.

Then my sailor told me his side of the story; how Sally's tip for the rescue of her hat had showed him what we took him to be; how her question about a boat had suggested playing the part; how he had begun it half for the fun of it and half, even then, for the interest the girl had roused in him—and he put in a pretty speech for the chaperone just there, the clever young man! He told me how his yacht had come sooner than he had expected, and that he had to give up one afternoon with her was so severe a trial that he knew then how much Sally meant to him.

"That moonlight sail was very close sailing indeed," he said, his face full of a feeling that he did not try to hide. "There was nearly a shipwreck, when—when she steered wrong." And I remembered.

Then, with no great confidence in her mood, I went in search of my girl. She is always unexpected, and a dead silence, when I had anxiously told my tale, was what I had not planned for. After a minute,

"Well?" I asked.

And "Well?" answered Sally, with scarlet cheeks, but calmly.

"He is waiting for you down-stairs," I said.

Then she acted in the foolish way that seemed natural. She dropped on her knees and put her face against my shoulder.

"Cousin Mary! I can't! It's a strange man—it isn't our sailor any more. I hate it. I don't like Englishmen."

"He's very much the same as yesterday," I said. "You needn't like him if you don't want to, but you must go and tell him so yourself." I think that was rather clever of me.

So, holding my hand and trembling, she went down. When I saw Richard Leigh's look as he stood waiting, I tried to loosen that clutching hand and leave them, but Sally, always different from any one else, held me tight.

"Cousin Mary, I won't stay unless you stay," she said, firmly.

I looked at the young man and he laughed.

"I don't care. I don't care if all the world hears me," he said, and he took a step forward and caught her hands.

Sally looked up at him. "You're a horrid lord or something," she said.

He laughed softly. "Do you mind? I can't help it. It's hard, but I want you to help me try to forget it. I'd gladly he a sailor again if you'd like me better."

"I did like you—before you deceived me. You pretended you were that."

"But I have grievances too—you said I was a queer little rat of a man."

Sally's laugh was gay but trembling. "I did say that, didn't I?"

"Yes, and you tried to underpay me, too."

"Oh, I didn't! You charged a lot more than the others."

Sir Richard shook his head firmly. "Not nearly as much as the Revenge was worth. I kept gangs of men scrubbing that boat till I nearly went into bankruptcy. And, what's more, you ought to keep your word, you know. You said you were going to marry Richard Leigh—Richard Grenville Cary Leigh is his whole name, you know. Will you keep your word?"

"But I—but you—but I didn't know," stammered Sally, feebly.

He went on eagerly. "You told me how he should wear his name—high and—and all that." He had no time for abstractions. "He can never do it alone—will you come and help him?"

Sally was palpably starching about for weapons to aid her losing fight. "Why do you like me? I'm not beautiful like Anne Ford." He laughed. "I'm not rich, you know, like lots of American girls. We're very poor"—she looked at him earnestly.

"I don't care if you're rich or poor," he said. "I don't know if you're beautiful—I only know you're you. It's all I want."

She shook a little at his vehemence, but she was a long fighter. "You don't know me very much," she went on, her soft voice breaking. "Maybe it's only a fancy—the moonlight and the sailing and all—maybe you only imagine you like me."

"Imagine I like you!"

And then, at the sight of his quick movement and of Sally's face I managed to get behind a curtain and put my fingers in my ears. No woman has a right to more than one woman's love-making. And as I stood there, a few minutes later, I felt myself pulled by two pairs of hands, and Sally and her lover were laughing at me.

I felt myself pulled by two pairs of hands.

"May I have her? I want her very much," he said, and I wondered if ever any one could say no to anything he asked. So, with a word about Sally's far-away mother and father, I told him, as an old woman might, that I had loved him from the first, and then I said a little of what Sally was to me.

"I like her very much," I said, in a shaky voice that tried to be casual. "Are you sure that you like her enough?" For all of his answer, he turned, not even touching her hands, and looked at her.

It was as if I caught again the fragrance of the box hedges in the southern sunshine of a garden where I had walked on a spring morning long ago. Love is as old-fashioned as the ocean, and us little changed in all the centuries. Its always yielding, never retreating arms lie about the lands that are built and carved and covered with men's progress; it keeps the air sweet and fresh above them, and from generation to generation its look and its depths are the same. That it is stronger than death does not say it all. I know that it is stronger than life. Death, with its crystal touch, may make a weak love strong; life, with its every-day wear and tear, must make any but a strong love weak.

I like to think that the look I saw in Richard Leigh's eyes as he turned toward my girl was the same look I shall see, not so very many years from now, when I close mine on this dear old world, and open them, by the shore of the ocean of eternity, on the face of Geoffrey Meade.