irl. Winslow's face was crimson. He avoided Nelly's
eye.

"Are them people friends of yours?" she asked in a low tone.

"Yes," he muttered.

"Well, let us go ashore if they want us to," she said calmly. "I don't
mind."

For three seconds Winslow hesitated. Then he pulled ashore and helped
Nelly to alight on a jutting rock. There was a curious, set expression
about his fine mouth as he marched Nelly up to Mrs. Keyton-Wells and
introduced her. Mrs. Keyton-Wells's greeting was slightly cool, but
very polite. She supposed Miss Ray was some little country girl with
whom Burton Winslow was carrying on a summer flirtation; respectable
enough, no doubt, and must be treated civilly, but of course wouldn't
expect to be made an equal of exactly. The other women took their cue
from her, but the men were more cordial. Miss Ray might be shabby, but
she was distinctly fetching, and Winslow looked savage.

Nelly was not a whit abashed, seemingly, by the fashionable circle in
which she found herself, and she talked away to Will Evans and the
others in her soft drawl as if she had known them all her life. All
might have gone passably well, had not a little Riverside imp, by name
of Rufus Hent, who had been picked up by the picnickers to run their
errands, come up just then with a pail of water.

"Golly!" he ejaculated in very audible tones. "If there ain't Mrs.
Pennington's hired girl!"

Mrs. Keyton-Wells stiffened with horror. Winslow darted a furious
glance at the tell-tale that would have annihilated anything except a
small boy. Will Evans grinned and went on talking to Nelly, who had
failed to hear, or at least to heed, the exclamation.

The mischief was done, the social thermometer went down to zero in
Nelly's neighbourhood. The women ignored her altogether. Winslow set
his teeth together and registered a mental vow to wring Rufus Hent's
sunburned neck at the first opportunity. He escorted Nelly to the
table and waited on her with ostentatious deference, while Mrs.
Keyton-Wells glanced at him stonily and made up her mind to tell his
mother when she went home.

Nelly's social ostracism did not affect her appetite. But after lunch
was over, she walked down to the skiff. Winslow followed her.

"Do you want to go home?" he asked.

"Yes, it's time I went, for the cats may be raidin' the pantry. But
you must not come; your friends here want you."

"Nonsense!" said Winslow sulkily. "If you are going I am too."

But Nelly w