plumage, glide here and there. It is all, in truth, a sight to make glad the heart of man. The arbutus dips to drink, shedding its flowers upon the tiny waves that carry them far from the parent stem. Some red leaves, bright as blood, drift with them. Through banks of brown, crisp, fading fern, tinged with a brilliant crimson, we float, past masses of gray rock and boulder clad with daintiest moss, whilst James descants aloud to us on the beauties of the islands we go by,—the Arbutus, the Oak, and Juniper Isles, clad with their namesakes, and the Eagle Island, so called because there are no eagles on it.
"Well, there used to be," says Carrie indignantly, who is full of faith.
Then Ronayne's Island, where, James assures us, some lunatic who passed for sane once lived for many years. Why, or for what, deponent sayeth not, but I have dark dreams of a mother-in-law as we steal slowly past it.
MacCarthy More's Island is the last we come to. On it the cedars of Lebanon flourish and grow green and throw their branches far and wide. Carrie grows very High Church again as she hears this, and Miss Kingsley says, "It is interesting."
It is a scene so satisfying, so entirely without a flaw, that I feel I should go to sleep but for the pangs of hunger that have assailed me. Landing on one of the islands, we proceed to the cold pies and chickens without further delay. It is a sultry day; not even the water in a shady nook, into which we have plunged it, makes the champagne cool; but, nevertheless, we are grateful for it. We have suggested to James that the water out of this same nook will be the coldest to mix with his whiskey; but he being of opinion that water spoils that liquor, we leave him to his own devices.
"Thank ye, ma'am!" says he. He always steadily ignores any one but Carrie. "You've brought us an uncommon good lunch (ye'll see how I pick up yer own words, ha! ha!), an' we're obliged to ye, but if ye'll lave us the whiskey nate, I think 'twill be more agreeable to us."
This settles the question.
When luncheon is at an end, we all rise with one accord and suggest a tour of the small isle on which we have dared to land.
"Oh that there might be hope of savages!" says Carrie with enthusiasm.
However, in spite of her prayer, we meet nothing, and finally reach a tiny bay surrounded by gray rocks, on one of which we come to a stand-still.
"How quite too utterly sweet!" says Jones, who has a mad hankering after the new religion of Art. "Mark its depths, its possibilities, its—"
"Mark Muriel's glove!" cries Carrie suddenly.
It has floated away, slowly, inconsiderately, just out of reach. She had been leaning over the huge rock that lies close to the water's bosom, and it had slipped from her and become part of the flotsam and jetsam of the sparkling lake. We had indeed been all stooping over the shelving rock when this catastrophe occurred, watching the water-grasses swaying to and fro.
As the glove is seen drifting away we all start into life, there is instant concern on the part of everybody. Regardless of our anxiety, however, it floats slowly farther and farther from us. Somebody surely ought to catch it.
I am conscious of a deep sense of gratitude as I remember I am no longer a gay bachelor, and that therefore it is not my duty to come to the relief of fair damsels in distress. That pleasant duty devolves upon Brooke and Jones. Hoping they like it, I stand at a respectful distance and watch their proceedings with a keen interest.
Brooke has flung himself upon his face and hands, and is projecting his body in a most dangerous fashion over the edge of rock in a futile attempt to recover the lost treasure. Every moment I expect to see his heels in the air, his head out of sight, so uncertain is his position. He seems wildly bent on the recovery of the glove, which in a tantalizing way bobs here and there, but never within reach. Now nigh, now far, now almost within his grasp it
