ement. But I did not mean
to let her pay for all our sailing, and I was horrified to find her
trying to get Cary cheaper by the quantity. When I arrived, Sally, a
little flustered and very dignified and quite evidently at the end of a
discussion as to terms, was concluding an engagement, and there was a
gleam in the man's wonderful eyes, which did much of his talking for
him.

"You see the boat is very new and clean, Miss," he was saying, "and I
hope you were satisfied with me?"

I upset Sally's business affairs at once, engaged Cary, and told him he
must take out no one else without knowing our plans. My handkerchief
fell as I talked to him and he picked it up and presented it with as
much ease and grace as if he had done such things all his life. It was a
remarkable sailor we had happened on. A smile came like sunshine over
his face--the smile that made him look as Geoffrey Meade looked, half a
century ago.

"I'll promise not to take any one else, ma'am," he said. And then, with
the pretty, engaging frankness that won my heart over again each time,
"And I hope you'll want to go often--not so much for the money, but
because it is a pleasure to me to take you--both."

There was mail for us waiting at the Inn. "Listen, Sally," I said, as I
read mine in my room after dinner. "This is from Anne Ford. She wants to
join us here the 6th of next month, to fill in a week between visits at
country-houses."

[Illustration: "You see, the boat is very new and clean, Miss," he was
saying.]

Sally, sitting on the floor before the fire, her dark hair loose and her
letters lying about her, looked up attentively, and discreetly answered
nothing. Anne Ford was my cousin, but not hers, and I knew without
discussing it, that Sally cared for her no more than I. She was made of
showy fibre, woven in a brilliant pattern, but the fibre was a little
coarse, and the pattern had no shading. She was rich and a beauty and so
used to being the centre of things, and largely the circumference too,
that I, who am a spoiled old woman, and like a little place and a little
consideration, find it difficult to be comfortable as spoke upon her
wheel.

"It's too bad," I went on regretfully. "Anne will not appreciate
Clovelly, and she will spoil it for us. She is not a girl I care for. I
don't see why I should he made a convenience for Anne Ford," I argued in
my selfish way. "I think I shall write her not to come."

Sally laughed cheerfully. "She wo