with rods and guns. We've all
day before us. My lord is off to Ballymoney, and can't be back till
supper-time."

"What takes Lord Dunseveric to Ballymoney to-day?" asked Neal. "There's
no magistrates' meeting, is there?"

"No. He's gone to meet our aunt, Madame de Tourneville. She's been
coming these five years, ever since she ran away from Paris at the time
of the Terror; but it's only now she has succeeded in arriving."

Together the two young men crossed the field and vaulted the wall which
separated the manse land from the road. The girl whom her brother called
Brown-Eyes waited for them. The name suited her well, and came naturally
from Maurice. He was tall and fair, yellow-haired, blue-eyed, large
limbed, a fine type of Antrim Irishman, the heir of the form and face
of generations of St. Clairs of Dunseveric. The girl, Una St. Clair,
belonged to a different race--came of her mother's people. She was
small, brown-skinned, brown-eyed, dark-haired. She grew as the years
went on more and more like what her mother had been. Lord Dunseveric,
watching his daughter pass from childhood to womanhood, saw in her the
very image of Marie Dillon, the French-Irish girl who had won his heart
a quarter of a century before in Paris.

"Take the guns, Neal. Here, Brown-Eyes, give me the rods and the basket.
There's no need for you to break your little back carrying them."

"Why should I when I've two big men to carry them for me? Indeed, I'm
not sure but one of you ought to carry me, too. You're big enough and
strong enough."

She smiled gaily at Neal as he shouldered the guns. They had built sand
castles together when they were little children, and tempted the waves
to chase them up the sand, flying barefoot from the pursuing lip of
foam. They had climbed and fallen, explored rocky bays, penetrated to
the depths of caves as they grew older. Always Una St. Clair had queened
it over the boys, teased them, petted them, scolded them. Now, grown to
womanhood, she discovered new powers in herself which made Neal at least
more than ever her slave.

They reached the little bay where the boat lay pulled up among the
rocks. Maurice and Neal lifted her stern on to a roller and dragged her
towards the sea. Una, running before them, laid other rollers on the
pathway of slippery rock till the boat floated. Then she climbed the
gunwale and settled herself on the stern seat among the rods and guns.
The two young men shoved off into deep wa