over by the water, several gulls lazily wheeling about. They were almost
as grey as the fog they circled in. Suddenly they seemed to perceive
her in turn, and, swerving sharply, came floating toward the hotel, with
harsh, almost menacing cries. She hurried in, and shut the window with
decision. It seemed to her that the smile with which, as she turned, she
was able to meet her uncle's look, was a product of true heroism.

Apparently this smile did not altogether delude him. "Oh, now, you
mustn't get down on your luck," he adjured her. "We're going to be
awfully cozy here. Have you seen your room? It's just there, in a little
alley to the right of the door. They say it has an even finer view
than these windows. Oh, you needn't laugh--this is the best view in the
world, I'm told by those who know. And as a winter-resort, why----"

"I say, look here!" The interruption came from Alfred, who, having gone
out on one of the balconies, put in his head now to summon them. "Come
here! Here's some fun."

He pointed out to Thorpe the meaning of the inscription on the sign, and
then pulled him forward to observe its practical defiance. A score of
big gulls were flapping and dodging in excited confusion close before
them, filling their ears with a painful clamour. Every now and again,
one of the birds, recovering its senses in the hurly-burly, would make a
curving swoop downward past the rows of windows below, and triumphantly
catch in its beak something that had been thrown into the air.

Thorpe, leaning over his railing, saw that a lady on a balcony one floor
below, and some yards to the left, was feeding the birds. She laughed
aloud as she did so, and said something over her shoulder to a companion
who was not visible.

"Well, that's pretty cool," he remarked to his niece, who had come to
stand beside him. "She's got the same sign down there that we've got. I
can see it from here. Or perhaps she can't read French."

"Or perhaps she isn't frightened of the hotel people," suggested the
girl. She added, after a little, "I think I'll feed them myself in
the morning. I certainly shall if the sun comes out--as a sort of
Thanksgiving festival, you know."

Her uncle seemed not to hear her. He had been struck by the exceptional
grace of the gestures with which the pieces of bread were flung forth.
The hands and wrists of this lady were very white and shapely. The
movements which she made with them, all unaware of observation as she