eflections. What he said to Cosden, that he was equally
unsuited to Merry and that he was old enough to be her father, expressed
the cold, hard facts; but he needed no second-sight to tell himself that
during these days of companionship, such as he had never before known,
the girl's sweet personality had penetrated the sham armor of the cynic,
and that he was face to face with an emotion far deeper than any he had
experienced from time to time in his library, in front of that table
with its curious exhibits, with the stage-like accessories of the
albatross-stem pipe and the flickering light from the burning logs. How
tinsel-like it all seemed to him now, compared with this
flesh-and-blood experience in the open air, with its glorious setting of
the sea and the beautiful island foliage!

He had reached this point in his mental activities when he saw Miss
Stevens approaching, and he greeted her cordially. Face to face with
this latest revelation, he disliked his own company. His
responsibilities, which had seemed terrifying to him so short a time
before, now appeared insignificant compared with the new responsibility
with which he had saddled himself. He thought little at this moment of
the burdens imposed upon him by Mrs. Thatcher, by Cosden, or by Billy:
he must now protect the girl against himself, and that would be the
hardest task of all.

Edith Stevens, as well as Huntington, found herself without her usual
occupation this morning. Cosden told her, the evening before, of his
plan to take Merry sailing, so she reverted to her natural habit of late
rising, from which she had temporarily reformed herself, knowing that
Cosden always breakfasted early and was usually looking for
companionship. Seeing Huntington absorbed in self-contemplation she
gravitated in his direction.

"We've lost our little playmates, haven't we?" she said cheerfully, as
he rose and pulled up another piazza chair for her. "Why isn't this a
good time for our Society to go into executive session?"

"Capital!" Huntington assented, replying only to the second part of her
question. "Is the secret-service department ready to make its report?"

"I've found the girl," she announced bluntly; "but I imagine you know
already who she is."

"The girl Connie is going to marry?" Huntington simulated a proper
attitude of interrogation.

"The girl he thinks he wants to marry," she corrected.

"Oh! he only thinks so. That's it, is it?"

Edith raised her