d that I cared very much
for you.... And, by the way, I meant to ask you yesterday; are we
engaged?"

"Are we?" he asked.

"Yes--if you wish.... Is _that_ all there is to an engagement?"

"There's a ring," observed Flavilla, dabbing on too much ultramarine and
using a sponge. "You've got to get her one, Mr. Yates."

Drusilla looked at the man beside her and smiled.

"How simple it is, after all!" she said. "I have read in the books Pa-pah
permits us to read such odd things about love and lovers.... Are we
lovers, Mr. Yates? But, of course, we must be, I fancy."

"Yes," he said.

"Some time or other, when it is convenient," observed Flavilla, "you
ought to kiss each other occasionally."

"That doesn't come until I'm a bride, does it?" asked Drusilla.

"I believe it's a matter of taste," said Flavilla, rising and naively
stretching her long, pretty limbs.

She stood a moment on the edge of the bluff, looking down.

"How curious!" she said after a moment. "There is Pa-pah on the water
rowing somebody's maid about."

"What!" exclaimed Yates, springing to his feet.

"How extraordinary," said Drusilla, following him to the edge of the
bluff; "and they're singing, too, as they row!"

From far below, wafted across the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay, Mr.
Carr's rich and mellifluous voice was wafted shoreward:

"_I der-reamt that I dwelt in ma-arble h-a-l-ls._"

The sunlight fell on the maid's coquettish cap and apron, and sparkled
upon the buckle of one dainty shoe. It also glittered across the monocle
of Mr. Carr.

"Pa-_pah!_" cried Flavilla.

Far away her parent waved a careless greeting to his offspring, then
resumed his oars and his song.

"How extraordinary!" said Flavilla. "Why do you suppose that Pa-_pah_ is
rowing somebody's maid around the bay, and singing that way to her?"

"Perhaps it's one of our maids," said Drusilla; "but that would be rather
odd, too, wouldn't it, Mr. Yates?"

"A--little," he admitted. And his heart sank.

Flavilla had started down the sandy face of the bluff.

"I'm going to see whose maid it is," she called back.

Drusilla seated herself in the sun-dried grass and watched her sister.

Yates stood beside her in bitter dejection.

So _this_ was the result! His unfortunate future father-in-law was done
for. What a diabolical machine! What a terrible, swift, relentless answer
had been returned when, out of space, this misguided gentleman had, by
mistake, summoned his