s!"

The boat rubbed its nose against the mossy bank; Lady Hesketh
placed her fair hands in Ricky's chubby ones and sprang to the
shore.

"Cecil Page," she said, "I am thirsty. Where are the others?"

Betty and Dorothy looked out from their seat in the tall grass.

"Charles brought the hamper; there it is," said Cecil.

Barbara Lisle and sentimental little Alixe von Elster strolled up
and looked lovingly upon the sandwiches.

Cecil Page stood and sulked, until Dorothy took pity and made
room on the moss beside her.

"Can't you have a little mercy, Betty?" she whispered; "Cecil
moons like a wounded elephant."

So Betty smiled at him and asked for more salad, and Cecil
brought it and basked in her smiles.

"Where is Jack Marche?" asked Molly Hesketh. "Dorothy, your
brother went into the chase with a gun, and where is he?"

"What does he want to shoot in July? It's too late for rooks,"
said Sir Thorald, pouring out champagne-cup for Barbara Lisle.

"I don't know where Jack went," said Dorothy. "He heard one of
the keepers complain of the hawks, so, I suppose, he took a gun.
I wonder why that strange Lorraine de Nesville doesn't come to
call. I am simply dying to see her."

"I saw her once," observed Sir Thorald.

"You generally do," added his wife.

"What?"

"See what others don't."

Sir Thorald, a trifle disconcerted, applied himself to caviare
and, later, to a bottle of Moselle.

"She's a beauty, they say--" began Ricky, and might have
continued had he not caught the danger-signal in Molly Hesketh's
black eyes.

"Lorraine de Nesville," said Lady Hesketh, "is only a child of
seventeen. Her father makes balloons."

"Not the little, red, squeaky kind," added Sir Thorald; "Molly,
he is an amateur aeronaut."

"He'd much better take care of Lorraine. The poor child runs wild
all over the country. They say she rides like a witch on a
broom--"

"Astride?" cried Sir Thorald.

"For shame!" said his wife; "I--I--upon my word, I have heard
that she has done that, too. Ricky! what do you mean by yawning?"

Ricky had been listening, mouth open. He shut it hurriedly and
grew pink to the roots of his colourless hair.

Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil, and Dorothy Marche laughed.

"What of it?" she said; "there is nobody here who would dare to!"

"Oh, shocking!" said little Alixe, and tried to look as though
she meant it.

At that moment Sir Thorald caught sight of Jack Marche, strolling
up through