he said; "but I should rather like
to know how it happened. You are unused to rowing, I presume?"

"Sir," I answered, "it was chiefly owing to the hot-headedness of
Scarlet Sam, the Scourge of the South Seas."

"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Selwyn with raised brows.

"Sir," I went on, "at this moment you probably believe yourself to be
Mr. Selwyn of Selwyn Park. Allow me to dispel that illusion; you are,
on the contrary, Don Pedro Vasquez da Silva, commanding the Esmeralda
galleasse, bound out of Santa Crux. In us you behold Scarlet Sam and
Timothy Bone, of the good ship Black Death, with the 'skull and
cross-bones' fluttering at our peak. If you don't see it, that is not
our fault."

Mr. Selwyn stared at me in wide-eyed astonishment, then shrugging his
shoulders, turned his back upon me and paddled away as best he might.
"Well, Imp," I said, "you've done it this time!"

"'Fraid I have," he returned; "but oh! wasn't it grand--and all that
about Don Pedro an' the treasure galleon! I do wish I knew as much as
you do, Uncle Dick. I'd be a real pirate then."

"Heaven forfend!" I exclaimed. So I presently turned and rowed back
upstream, not a little perturbed in my mind as to the outcome of the
adventure.

"Not a word, mind!" I cautioned as I caught sight of a certain dainty
figure watching our approach from the shade of her parasol. The Imp
nodded, sighed, and sheathed his cutlass.

"Well!" said Lisbeth as we glided up to the water-stairs; "I wonder
what mischief you have been after together?"

"We have been floating upon a river of dreams," I answered, rising and
lifting my hat; "we have likewise discoursed of many things. In the
words of the immortal Carroll:

"'Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, and cabbages, and--'"

"Pirates!" burst out the Imp.

"This dream river of ours," I went on, quelling him with a glance, "has
carried us to you, which is very right and proper. Dream rivers always
should, more especially when you sit ''Mid sunshine throned, and all
alone.'"

"But I'm not all alone, Dick."

"No; I'm here," said a voice, and Dorothy appeared with her small and
fluffy kitten under her arm as usual. "We are waiting for Mr. Selwyn,
you know. We've waited, oh! a long, long time, but he hasn't come, and
Auntie says he's a beast, and--"

"Dorothy!" exclaimed Lisbeth, frowning.

"Yes, you did, Auntie," sad Dorothy, nodding her head. "I heard you
when Louise ran up a tree and I had to co