that she had only to hold up a
finger. Yet she kept that finger persistently down.

She was in no hurry to engage herself to anybody. There was plenty of
time. She was quite young and perfectly happy at home, as incidentally
and periodically she would remind a remote cousin who pestered her. But
she owned to herself that he was not in the same street with Dick
Selmes. Yet about the latter there was something wanting, something
which, much as she liked him, somewhat failed to satisfy her.
Light-heartedness is a valuable gift, but he was too light-hearted; too
boyish. He would be the better for some trying experience, she decided,
something that would mould his character. Even were she to fall in with
the wishes he was seeking opportunity to utter, how could she feel
entirely assured that he knew his own mind? She could not so feel,
therefore she cut the knot of the difficulty by taking care to give him
no such opportunity.

Then again, what about his belongings--his father, for instance? She
knew that his position and prospects were unimpeachable; and would it
not be said that she had laid herself out to entrap him? There was a
decided hardening of the proud little mouth at the thought. She would
have no secret or provisional understanding. If he knew his own mind,
he knew where to find her when his travels should be over; in her own
home to wit. This would cut both ways, for while suspecting him of not
quite knowing his own mind in the matter, Hazel candidly admitted to
herself that at this stage she did not know hers. She owned she would
miss him dreadfully when he left; but--the point was, would she miss him
when she got home again?

That last evening could hardly be pronounced a successful experiment in
cheerfulness. Not to put too fine a point on it it was unequivocally
dismal. Harley Greenoak was, if anything, more sparing of speech than
usual, and old Hesketh was tired. Hazel's heroic attempts at
brightening up the situation fell flat. Dick Selmes was gloomy, and
inclined to import a note of sentiment into his remarks; and then--his
last cable was cut away. He had clung to a hope that he might get Hazel
to himself, if only for a few minutes, after the others had retired; but
no--she forestalled them, bidding good-night quite unnecessarily early,
and before any one else had shown signs of moving.

"Got everything ready, Dick?" said Greenoak, coming into his room. "We
start just after sun-up