ction, said there were many districts
which merited that description. He mentioned eleven, and was discoursing
somewhat learnedly on drainage and soils when he noticed that the young
man's attention was wandering. With a muttered reference to his work, he
rose and quitted the room.

Day succeeded day in tiresome waiting, and Mr. Robert Vyner, leaning
back in his chair, regarded with a hostile eye the pile of work that
accumulated on his table as he sat dreaming of Joan Hartley. In
a species of waking nightmare he would see her beset by hordes of
respectful but persistent admirers. He manifested a craving for
Mr. Hartley's society, and, discovering by actual experience that,
melancholy as the house was without its mistress, all other places were
more melancholy still, contrived, to its owner's great discomfort, to
spend a considerable number of his evenings there.

"He's a pattern to all of you," said Rosa to Mr. Walters, who sat in the
kitchen one evening, cautiously watching Mr. Vyner through a small hole
in the muslin blind.

Mr. Walters grunted.

"I believe he worships the ground she treads on," said Rosa, in exalted
tones.

Mr. Walters grunted again, and her colour rose. For nearly a fortnight
she had not spoken to any other man--at least, to the boatswain's
knowledge--and she fully realized the cloying effect of security upon a
man of his temperament.

"Last night I saw him standing for half an hour looking into a shop,"
she said, softly. "What shop do you think it was?"

Mr. Walters's face took on an obstinate expression. "Butcher's?" he
hazarded, at last.

"Butcher's!" repeated Rosa, with scorn. "What should he want to look in
a butcher's for? It was Hickman's, the jeweller's."

The boatswain said "Oh!" and devoted himself with renewed interest to
his task of watching Mr. Vyner. Miss Jelks's conversation for some time
past had circled round engagement-rings, a subject which brought him
face to face with the disagreeable side of flirtation.

"More fool him," he said, without looking round.

Rosa gazed fixedly at the back of his head. She was far too sensible
not to have noticed the gradual waning of his passion, and she chided
herself severely for having dropped her usual tactics. At the same time
she realized that she was not alone to blame in the matter, the gilded
youth of Salthaven, after one or two encounters with Mr. Walters, having
come to the conclusion that a flirtation with her was a tempta