bowed lazily to Mrs. Hildreth. "Let me congratulate
you, lady mother. You will have the pleasure of floating another bud
into blossom upon the bosom of society."

"I do not see any room for congratulation, Louis," Mrs. Hildreth said
discontentedly. "It is a dreadful responsibility. One does not know what
the child may be like."

"Hardly a child, mamma," pouted Marion. "Evadne must be as old as I."

"If that is so, Sis, she must have the wisdom of Methusaleh!" and Louis
looked at his sister with one of his mocking smiles. "At any rate she
will afford scope for your powers of training, Isabelle. It must be
depressing to have to waste your eloquence upon an audience of one."

Isabelle tossed her head. "I am not anxious for the opportunity," she
said coldly. "Likely the child will be a perfect heathen after running
wild among savages all her life."

Louis whistled. "A little less Grundy and a little more geography would
be to your advantage, Isabelle! Barbadoes happens to be the creme de la
creme of the British Indies. I would not advise you to display your
ignorance before Evadne, or your future lecturettes on the
conventionalities may prove lacking in vital force."

"Why, Isabelle, my dear, you must be dreaming!" and her mother looked
annoyed. "Don't let your father hear you say such a thing, I beg of you!
When he visited Barbadoes he was delighted, and he thought Evadne's
mother one of the most charming women he had ever met. If she had lived
of course Evadne would be all right, but she has been left entirely to
her father's guidance, and he had such peculiar ideas."

"When, did she die, mamma?" asked Marion.

"I am sure I cannot remember. Six or seven years ago it must have been.
But we rarely heard from them. Your Uncle Lenox was always a wretched
correspondent, and since his wife's death he has hardly written at all."

"The house of Hildreth cannot claim to be well posted in the matter of
blood relations," said Louis carelessly, as he helped himself to olives.

* * * * *

Upon the deck of one of the Ocean Greyhounds a promiscuous crowd was
gathered. Returning tourists in all the glory of field glasses and tweed
suits; British officers going home on furlough from the different
outposts where they were stationed; merchants from the rich markets of
the far East; picturesque foreigners in national costume; and a bishop
who paced the deck with a dignity becoming his ecclesiastical