y silver yardstick with you to-night, dear?"

"Why of co'se, Papa Jack. What makes you ask such a question?"

"Well," he answered, "there is so much weaving going on around you
lately, and weddings are apt to put all sorts of notions into a girl's
head. I just wanted to remind you that only village lads and shepherd
boys are in sight, probably not even a knight, and the mantle must be
worthy of a prince's wearing, you know."

Then Lloyd pretended to be hurt, and Betty could tell from her voice
just how she lifted her head with an air of injured dignity.

"Remembah I gave you my promise, suh, the promise of a Lloyd. Isn't that
enough?"

"More than enough, my little Hildegarde." As they stepped out of the
bushes together Betty saw him playfully pinch her cheek. Then Lloyd
went on down the bank. Here Betty took up her pen again.

"When she stepped into the boat the moonlight on her white dress and
shining hair made her look almost as ethereal and fair as she had in the
Elaine tableau. The boats could only go as far as the shallows, just a
little way below the bridge, so they went back and forth a number of
times, making such a pretty picture for those who waited on the bank.

"After Doctor Bradford had brought Lloyd back he asked me to go with
him, and oh, it was so beautiful out there on the water. I'll enjoy the
memory of it as long as I live. At first I couldn't think of anything to
say, and the more I tried to think of something that would interest a
man like him, the more embarrassed I grew. It was the first time I had
ever tried to talk to any but old men or the home boys.

"After we had rowed a little way in silence he turned to me with the
jolliest twinkle in his eyes and asked me why the boat ought to be
called the Mayflower. I was _so_ surprised, I asked him if that was a
riddle, and he said no, but he wondered if I wouldn't feel that it was
the Mayflower because I was adrift in it with the Pilgrim Father.

"I was so embarrassed I didn't know what to say, for I couldn't imagine
how he had found out that we had called him that. I couldn't have talked
to him at all if I had known what Lloyd told me afterward when we had
gone to our room. It seems that by some unlucky chance he was left alone
with Mary Ware for awhile before dinner. Godmother told her to entertain
him, and she proceeded to do so by showing him the collection of all the
kodak pictures Rob had taken of us during the house-party. After he left