e clinging touch of the old court gown is like
a timid appeal for remembrance.

After that rainy afternoon at the manorhouse, we were storm-bound
aboard Gadabout for a few days. At last the weather cleared and we
again thought of a trip ashore. There was yet a brisk wind; and for
some time our rowboat rocked alongside, industriously bumping the paint
off the houseboat, while we sat on the windlass box enjoying the fresh
breeze in our faces and watching the driftage catch on our anchor
chain. Of course one can sit right down on the bobby bow itself with
feet hanging over, and poke with a stick at the flotsam. But that is
only for moments of lazy leisure, not for a time when one is about to
visit Brandon.

At last, we were ashore and again in the "woods-way." That was the day
we got into trouble, all owing to Nautica's passion for ancient
tombstones. We were half way to Brandon when she concluded that it was
not the manor-house that she wished to visit first, but the old
graveyard. We stopped at the manager's house to inquire the way. The
road led inland. It soon dipped to a bridge over a little stream, where
the banks were masses of honeysuckle whose fragrance followed us up the
slope beyond. On a little farther was a field with a grove in the
centre of it that we knew, from the directions given us, contained the
cemetery.

We entered the field, and had got almost to the grove when Nautica
suddenly stopped, stared, and turned pale. The Commodore's glance
followed hers; whereupon, he uttered brave words calculated to reassure
the timid feminine heart, and in a voice that would have been steady
enough if his knees had kept still. The bull said nothing.

Very soon, and without his moving at all, that bull was far away from
us. We recognized at once that the field was properly his preserve and
that we really had no right there; but we trusted that our intrusion in
coming in would be atoned for by our promptness in getting out.

In the absorbing process of putting space between the bull and the
houseboaters, the restlessness of the Commodore's knees was really an
advantage. They moved so fast that he was able to keep in advance of
Nautica, and so be ready to protect her if another bull should appear
on ahead. When he felt satisfied that he need no longer expose himself
in the van (and, incidentally, that the bull in the rear had been left
out of sight), he slackened his pace. We managed to get down to a walk
in the cour