"

Gerald had flushed up at the turn in the conversation; and Selwyn
steered Lansing into other and safer channels until Gerald went away to
find a rod.

And, as Drina had finished her French lesson, she and Lansing presently
departed, brandishing fishing-rods adorned with the gaudiest of flies.

* * * * *

The house and garden at Silverside seemed to be logical parts of a
landscape, which included uplands, headlands, sky, and water--a silvery
harmonious ensemble, where the artificial portion was neither
officiously intrusive nor, on the other hand, meagre and insignificant.

The house, a long two-storied affair with white shutters and pillared
veranda, was built of gray stone; the garden was walled with it--a
precaution against no rougher intruder than the wind, which would have
whipped unsheltered flowers and fruit-trees into ribbons.

Walks of hardened earth, to which green mould clung in patches, wound
through the grounds and threaded the three little groves of oak,
chestnut, and locust, in the centres of which, set in circular lawns,
were the three axes of interest--the stone-edged fish-pond, the spouting
fountain, and the ancient ship's figurehead--a wind-worn, sea-battered
mermaid cuddling a tiny, finny sea-child between breast and lips.

Whoever the unknown wood-carver had been he had been an artist, too, and
a good one; and when the big China trader, the _First Born_, went to
pieces off Frigate Light, fifty years ago, this figurehead had been cast
up from the sea.

Wandering into the garden, following the first path at random, Selwyn
chanced upon it, and stood, pipe in his mouth, hands in his pockets,
surprised and charmed.

Plunkitt, the head gardener, came along, trundling a mowing-machine.

"Ain't it kind 'er nice," he said, lingering. "When I pass here
moonlight nights, it seems like that baby was a-smilin' right up into
his mamma's face, an' that there fish-tailed girl was laughin' back at
him. Come here some night when there's a moon, Cap'in Selwyn."

Selwyn stood for a while listening to the musical click of the machine,
watching the green shower flying into the sunshine, and enjoying the raw
perfume of juicy, new-cut grass; then he wandered on in quest of Miss
Erroll.

Tulips, narcissus, hyacinths, and other bulbs were entirely out of
bloom, but the earlier herbaceous borders had come into flower, and he
passed through masses of pink and ivory-tinted peonies-