happens to be young and full of the joy of life," he said, with a
smile. "And it's only on your mind!"

She nodded gravely.

"Yes, of course I know that it's not right that he should be hanging
about the Mills, doing nothing, and wasting his time. I'm always
worrying about Dick's future. It's a sin that he should be wasted, for
Dick is clever. You may not think so----"

"Oh, yes, I do," he said thoughtfully. "But I wouldn't worry. Something
may turn up----"

She laughed.

"That is what he is always saying; but he says it rather bitterly
sometimes, and----But I ought not to worry you, at any rate. Those fish
are just done."

"Then my life is just saved," he responded solemnly.

"There are two plates; you hold them on the top of the stove to
warm--that's it! And now you fill the kettle--oh! I see you've thought
of that. It will boil while we eat the fish."

She helped him to some, and they ate in silence for some minutes. Only
they who have eaten mackerel within a few minutes of their being caught,
and eaten them while reclining in a boat, with a blue sky overhead and a
sapphire sea all around, can know how good mackerel can taste. To
Vernon, who possessed the appetite of the convalescent, the meal was an
Olympian feast.

"No more?" he said, as Nell declined. "Pray don't say so, or I shall,
from sheer decency, have to refuse also; and I could eat another half,
and will do so if you will take the other. You wouldn't be so heartless
as to deprive me of a second serve, surely!"

Nell laughed and held out her plate.

"I consent because I do not think the recently starving should eat too
much at first. Didn't you say that you had been in Egypt fighting? You
are in the army, then?"

He nodded casually, and she looked at him thoughtfully.

"Then we ought not to call you 'Mr.,'" she said. "What are you--a
colonel?"

He laughed shortly as he picked the fish from the bones.

"Good heavens! do I look so old? No, not colonel. I'm a captain. But I'm
not in the army now. I left it--worse luck!"

"Why did you leave it?" she asked.

He looked a little bored--not so much bored, perhaps, as reluctant.

"Oh, for a variety of reasons; the most important being the fact that a
relative of mine wished me to do so."

His face clouded for a moment or two; then he said, with the air of one
dismissing an unpleasant topic:

"This water's boiling like mad. Now is my time to prove my assertion
that I am capable of making co