with as much secrecy
as possible. I shall ask my aunt to go with me."

I assured Miss Stanleigh that the _Sylph_ was at her service.

* * * * *

Mrs. Stanleigh was a large bland woman, inclined to stoutness and to
making confidences, with an intense dislike of the tropics and physical
discomforts of any sort. How her niece prevailed upon her to make that
surreptitious trip to Muloa, which we set out upon two days later, I
have never been able to imagine. The accommodations aboard the schooner
were cramped, to say the least, and the good lady had a perfect horror
of volcanoes. The fact that Lakalatcha had behind it a record of a
century or more of good conduct did not weigh with her in the least. She
was convinced that it would blow its head off the moment the _Sylph_ got
within range. She was fidgety, talkative, and continually concerned over
the state of her complexion, inspecting it in the mirror of her bag at
frequent intervals and using a powder-puff liberally to mitigate the
pernicious effects of the tropic sun. But once having been induced to
make the voyage, I must admit she stuck manfully by her decision,
ensconcing herself on deck with books and cushions and numerous other
necessities to her comfort, and making the best of the sleeping quarters
below. As the captain of the _Sylph_, she wanted me to understand that
she had intrusted her soul to my charge, declaring that she would not
draw an easy breath until we were safe again in Port Charlotte.

"This dreadful business of Eleanor's," was the way she referred to our
mission, and she got round quite naturally to telling me of Farquharson
while acquainting me with her fears about volcanoes. Some years before,
Pompeii and Herculaneum had had a most unsettling effect upon her
nerves. Vesuvius was slightly in eruption at the time. She confessed to
never having had an easy moment while in Naples. And it was in Naples
that her niece and Farquharson had met. It had been, as I surmised, a
swift, romantic courtship, in which Farquharson, quite irreproachable in
antecedents and manners, had played the part of an impetuous lover.
Italian skies had done the rest. There was an immediate marriage, in
spite of Mrs. Stanleigh's protests, and the young couple were off on a
honeymoon trip by themselves. But when Mrs. Stanleigh rejoined her
husband at Nice, and together they returned to their home in Sussex, a
surprise was in store for them. El