e excuse. London is particularly hateful
just now; though, as you say, there are a good many people there still."

"Did you meet my cousin Wolfer?" asked Mrs. Lorton.

Drake expressed his regret at not having done so.

"I think you would like him," she said, with her head on one side, and
with a long sigh. "It is years since I have seen him. When last we
met----"

"'He wore a wreath of roses!'" murmured Dick, under his breath.

--"And no doubt he would find me much changed; one ages in these
out-of-the-way places, where the stir and bustle of the great world
never reaches one."

"Mamma dropping into poetry is too touching!" murmured Dick; then aloud:
"Nell, my child, if you are going to have a fit you had better leave the
room. This is the second time you have shot out your long legs and
kicked me. You had better see Doctor Spence."

The boy's badinage, Nell's half-shy delight, filled Drake with joy; even
Mrs. Lorton's folly only amused him. He leaned back and drank his tea
and ate his toast--he knew that Nell had made it, and every morsel was
sweet to him--with a feeling of happiness too deep for words. And yet
there was anxiety mixed with his happiness. Was the delight only that
which would arise in the heart of a young girl, a child, at the visit of
a friend?

"Shall we go down and look at the boat?" he asked, after he had
dutifully listened to some more of Mrs. Lorton's remarks on fashion and
nobility.

"Right you are!" said Dick; "and if you will promise to behave yourself
like a decent member of society, you shall come too, Nell. You won't
mind my bringing my little sister, sir?"

Drake smiled, but the smile died away as they walked down to the jetty;
he could have dispensed with the presence of Nell's little brother.

"We might go for a short sail, mightn't we?" he said, as they stood
looking at the boat. "Pity you didn't bring your gun, Dick!"

"Oh, I can fetch it!" said Dick promptly. "I shan't be ten minutes."

Drake waved to Brownie to bring the _Annie Laurie_ to the steps, and
helped Nell into the boat; then ran up the sail, and pushed off.

"Aren't we going to wait for Dick?" said Nell innocently.

"Oh, we'll just cruise about till he comes," said Drake. "Let me take
the tiller."

He steered the boat for the bay, and lit his pipe. It was just as if he
had not left Shorne Mills; and, as he looked around at the multicolored
cliffs, the sky dyed by the setting sun with vivid hues of crimson