e, to save life. As to her action on shore, the knowledge
she used is given in books and manuals. What's more, she had seen it
done. But most people are so pointless and shiftless that they
never know just what to do in an emergency, no matter what their
opportunities for information may have been."

"Now you hit me," Graydon remarked, ruefully, "Left to myself I should
have finished the young one, for I was about to run to the hotel with
her, a course that I now see would have been as fatal as idiotic."

"Madge says," Mrs. Muir continued, "that they used to bathe a great
deal, and that Mr. Wayland explained just what should be done in all
the possible emergencies of their outdoor life at Santa Barbara."

"Wayland in a level-headed man. If he is bookish, he's not a dreamer
with his head in the clouds. Madge was in good hands with them, and
proves it every day."

"I think she shows the influence of Mrs. Wayland even more than that
of her husband. Fanny is a very accomplished woman, and saw a great
deal of society in her younger days."

"Confound it all! Why didn't you tell me that Madge had been living
with two paragons?" said Graydon.

"Oh, you have been so occupied with another paragon that there has
not been much chance to tell you anything," was Mrs. Muir's consoling
reply.

"Madge has not been made what she is by paragons," Mr. Muir remarked,
dryly. "She made herself. They only helped her, and couldn't have
helped a silly woman."

"It's time you were jealous, Mary," said Graydon, laughing.

"Mary isn't a silly woman. I should hope that no Muir would marry
one."

"I see no prospect of it," was the rather cold reply.

"I fear I see a worse prospect," was his brother's thought. "Of what
use are his eyes or senses after what he has seen to-day?"

Mrs. Muir had explained to some lady friends about Madge, and the
information was passing into general circulation--the ladies rapidly
coming to the conclusion that the young girl's action was not so
remarkable after all, which was true enough. The men, however,
retained their enthusiastic admiration, although it must be admitted
that its inspiration was due largely to Madge's beauty.

"Of course women have done braver things," said one man, with sporting
tendencies, "but it was the neat, gamy way in which she did it that
took my eye. Her method was as complete and rounded out as herself.
Jove! as she bent over that child she was a nymph that would turn the
hea