the bows, bareheaded and happy. Lord Ronald,
who was feeling a little sea-sick, sat at her feet.

"I had no idea," he remarked plaintively, "that your mother was capable
of such crudities. If I had known, I certainly would not have trusted
myself to such a party. This sea air is hateful. It has tarnished my
cigarette-case already, and one's nails will not be fit to be seen. To
be out of doors like this is worse than drinking unfiltered water."

Jeanne smiled down at him a little contemptuously.

"You are a child of the cities, Lord Ronald," she remarked. "Next year
I am going to buy a yacht myself, but I shall not ask you to come with
us."

Lord Ronald groaned.

"That is the worst of all heiresses," he said. "You have such queer
tastes. I shall never summon up my courage to propose to you."

"There is always leap year," Jeanne reminded him.

"What a bewildering suggestion!" he murmured, looking uncomfortably
over the side of the boat. "I say, Forrest, what do you think of this
sort of thing?"

"Idyllic!" Forrest declared cynically. "To sit upon a hard plank and to
have one's digestion unmercifully interfered with like this is
unqualified rapture. If only there were cabins one might sleep."

"There will be cabins on my yacht," Jeanne declared laughing, "but I
shall not ask either of you. You are both of you knights of the candle
light. I shall get some great strong fisherman to be captain, and I
shall go round the world and forget the days and the months."

Forrest shivered slightly.

"The country," he remarked to the Princess, "is having a terrible
effect upon your stepdaughter."

The Princess nodded and thrust a bonbon into the languid jaws of the
dog she was holding.

"It is my fault," she declared. "It is I who have set this fashion. It
was a whim, and I am tired of it. Tell our host that we will go back."

They tacked a few minutes later, and swept shoreward. Jeanne, still
standing in the bows, was gazing steadfastly upon the little island at
the entrance of the estuary.

"I should like," she declared, pointing it out to Cecil, "to land there
and have some tea."

Cecil looked at her doubtfully.

"We shall be home in a little more than an hour," he said, "and I don't
suppose we could get any tea there, even if we were able to land."

"I have a conviction that we should," Jeanne declared. "Mother," she
added, turning round to the older woman, "there is an island just ahead
of us with a delightfu