d, and neither
man nor boy could be found to row them. Here was a fine predicament! A
snapshot taken of the party at this moment would have been an eloquent
study in disappointment, and each one looked expectantly at Arthur,
waiting for him to find a solution of the difficulty.

"Here is a fine pickle! I'm furious with myself, and yet I don't see
what more I could have done. There are two alternatives before us, so
far as I can see--either we must get into one of these old tubs and row
ourselves across, or give up the island altogether, and spend the day
where we are."

At this there was a groan of dismay, for, truth to tell, the village was
of an uninteresting character, and the sands felt like an oven in the
shadeless noon. To spend the day here would indeed be waste of time,
while only a few miles off lay the island of their dreams--that
wonderful island, with the blue waves splashing its shores, the kindly
trees shading its crest.

"The island! the island!" cried the girls in chorus, while the men
looked at each other, braced themselves up, and said:

"We can do it. Why not? It will be a stiff pull, but the day is our
own. We can take our time, and rest when we are tired. Let us go at
once and choose a boat."

It was Dobson's choice, however, or very nearly so, for the only boats
left were tubs indeed, in which a score of passengers could have been
accommodated as easily as eight. Large as they were, however, there was
one member of the party who seemed diffident about their sea-going
quality, and, wonderful to relate, that person was Peggy herself.

"Is it safe?" she kept asking. "Is it safe? Are you quite sure it is
safe?"--and her companions stared in amazement at this sudden access of
nervousness.

"Why, Peggy, you are surely not turning coward in your old age!" Arthur
cried laughingly, as he dragged at the unwieldy bulk. "If you are
afraid of this old bark, I don't know when you would feel safe. It is
like going to sea in a pantechnicon!"

"And after a voyage to India, too! How funny! I am not a bit afraid,
and I have never been out of England in my life. Are you afraid of
being drowned?" chimed in Mellicent, with an air of superiority which
goaded Peggy past endurance.

"I was not thinking of myself. It is possible sometimes to be nervous
for another," she blurted out, and the next moment wished her tongue had
been bitten off before she had uttered such a rash remark; for what
co