h, wouldn't it be delightful!" came from Annette at last.

"What?" asked Philip.

"Why, Monsieur LeConte says he'll take six of us out in his catboat
tomorrow for a fishing-trip on the Gulf."

"Hum," drily.

"And I'll get Natalie and her cousins."

"Yes," still more drily.

Annette chattered on, entirely oblivious of the strainedness of the
men's adieux, and still chattered as they drove through the pines.

"I did not know that you were going to take fishermen and marchands
into the bosom of your social set when you came here," growled Philip,
at last.

"But, Cousin Phil, can't you see he is a gentleman? The fact that he
makes no excuses or protestations is a proof."

"You are a fool," was the polite response.

Still, at six o'clock next morning, there was a little crowd of seven
upon the pier, laughing and chatting at the little "Virginie" dipping
her bows in the water and flapping her sails in the brisk wind.
Natalie's pink bonnet blushed in the early sunshine, and Natalie's
mamma, comely and portly, did chaperonage duty. It was not long before
the sails gave swell into the breeze and the little boat scurried to
the Sound. Past the lighthouse on its gawky iron stalls, she flew, and
now rounded the white sands of Cat Island.

"Bravo, the Gulf!" sang a voice on the lookout. The little boat
dipped, halted an instant, then rushed fast into the blue Gulf waters.

"We will anchor here," said the host, "have luncheon, and fish."

Philip could not exactly understand why the fisherman should sit so
close to Annette and whisper so much into her ears. He chafed at her
acting the part of hostess, and was possessed of a murderous desire to
throw the pink sun-bonnet and its owner into the sea, when Natalie
whispered audibly to one of her cousins that "Mees Annette act nice
wit' her lovare."

The sun was banking up flaming pillars of rose and gold in the west
when the little "Virginie" rounded Cat Island on her way home, and the
quick Southern twilight was fast dying into darkness when she was tied
up to the pier and the merry-makers sprang off with baskets of fish.
Annette had distinguished herself by catching one small shark, and had
immediately ceased to fish and devoted her attention to her fisherman
and his line. Philip had angled fiercely, landing trout, croakers,
sheepshead, snappers in bewildering luck. He had broken each hopeless
captive's neck savagely, as though they were personal enemies. He did