ho had assisted them to dress, accompanied them.

"Now, Mr. Atherton, you had better seat yourself in that great
deck-chair of yours with the leg-rest. If you sit there quietly reading
when they come on board they are not likely to suspect you of being a
desperate character, or to appreciate your inches and width of shoulder.
Allen had better sit quiet till they get alongside, and then slip that
sling into his pocket and walk up and down talking to one of the ladies,
with his thumb in his waistcoat so as to support his arm. He looks pale
and shaky; but they are not accustomed to much colour here, and he will
pass well enough."

As soon as Mr. Atherton had taken his seat Mrs. Renshaw and Marion came
up to him. "How can we thank you enough, Mr. Atherton, for the risks you
have run to succour Wilfrid, and for your kind consideration in going on
shore to wait for him?"

"It was nothing, Mrs. Renshaw. I own to enjoying a scrimmage when I can
go into one with the feeling of being in the right. You know that I am a
very lazy man, but it is just your lazy men who do enjoy exerting
themselves occasionally."

"It was grand!" Marion broke in; "and you ought not to talk as if it was
nothing, Mr. Atherton. Wilfrid said that he thought it was all over with
him till he saw a big man flying down the road."

"A perfect colossus of Rhodes!" Mr. Atherton laughed.

"It is not a thing to joke about," Marion went on earnestly. "It may
seem very little to you, Mr. Atherton, but it is everything to us."

"Don't you know that one always jokes when one is serious, Miss Renshaw?
You know that in church any little thing that you would scarcely notice
at any other time makes you inclined to laugh. Some day in the far
distance, when you become a woman, you will know the truth of the
saying, that smiles and tears are very close to each other."

"I am getting to be a woman now," Marion said with some dignity; for Mr.
Atherton always persisted in treating her as if she were a child, which,
as she was nearly seventeen, was a standing grievance to her.

"Age does not make a woman, Miss Renshaw. I saw you skipping three days
ago with little Kate Mitford and your brother and young Allen, and you
enjoyed it as much as any of them."

"We were trying which could keep up the longest," Marion said; "Wilfrid
and I against the other two. You were looking on, and I believe you
would have liked to have skipped too."

"I think I should," Mr. Atherton agr