creature, while Anne planned to send her card to him to-morrow, and
conjectured gayeties for all of us, beyond. Sir Richard Leigh and his
yacht did not fill a very large arc on our horizon to-night. Sally came
into my room to tell me good-night, when we went up-stairs, and she
looked so wistful and tired that I gave her two kisses instead of one.

"Thank you," she said, smiling mistily. "We won't talk to-night, will
we, Cousin Mary?" So without words, we separated.

Next morning as I opened my tired eyes on a world well started for the
day, there came a tap at the door and in floated Anne Ford, a fine bird
in fine feathers, wide-awake and brisk.

"Never saw such lazy people!" she exclaimed. "I've just been in to see
Sally and she refuses to notice me. I suppose it's exhaustion from
shipwreck. But I wasn't shipwrecked, and I've had my breakfast, and it's
too glorious a morning to stay indoors, so I'm going to walk down to the
water and look at Sir Richard's boat, and send off my card to him by a
sailor or something. Then, if he's a good boy, he will turn up to-day,
and then--!" The end of Anne's sentence was wordless ecstasy.

But the mention of the sailor had opened the flood-gates for me, and in
rushed all my responsibilities. What should I do with this situation
into which I had so easily slipped, and let Sally slip? Should I
instantly drag her off to France like a proper chaperone? Then how could
I explain to Anne--Anne would be heavy dragging with that lodestone of a
yacht in the harbor. Or could we stay here as we had planned and not see
Cary again? The unformed shapes of different questions and answers came
dancing at me like a legion of imps as I lay with my head on the pillow
and looked at Anne's confident, handsome face, and admired the freshness
and cut of her pale blue linen gown.

"Well, Cousin Mary," she said at last, "you and Sally seem both to be
struck dumb from your troubles. I'm going off to leave you till you can
be a little nicer to me. I may come back with Sir Richard--who knows!
Wish me good luck, please!" and she swept off on a wave of good-humor
and good looks.

I lay and thought. Then, with a pleasant leisure that soothed my nerves
a little, I dressed, and went down to breakfast in the quaint
dining-room hung from floor to ceiling with china brought years ago from
the far East by a Clovelly sailor. As I sat over my egg and toast Sally
came in, pale, but sweet and crisp in the white that Sou