There was one case of happiness without drawbacks on the island at this time. It was in the humble starved heart of Herbert Loring, Second. Each morning Mrs. Lowell came into his room after breakfast and made his bed, taught him how to take care of his belongings, and read with him from the books she loved. All traces of Nicholas Gayne's occupation having been removed, and every article the boy had used in the past dispensed with, his fresh new possessions were neatly arranged, and he waked each morning to a new and wonderful life. Mrs. Lowell encouraged his artistic work and allowed him to spend as much time upon it as he wished. All fear being removed, his appetite revived, and one could almost daily see the flesh return upon his bones. His good friend, finding that his sapped energies recoiled from muscular effort, did not urge him to swim or to row, but fed his mind and heart and awaited his rebuilding.

His story became known on the island, and from being ignored or contemptuously pitied, the good-looking boy in the simple, smart sports clothes was the object on all sides of a friendly curiosity, which he could not understand and frequently rebuffed through his very directness and inexperience. It was his weekly duty to write to Mr. Wrenn, and this was a dreaded task, but Mrs. Lowell explained to him that he had his grandfather's name, and that he must begin to learn to fill his place in the world; and his pitifully childish writing and misspelling had to be corrected under the eyes that were still sad at such times.

"I'm so ignorant, such a baby!" he exclaimed one morning when this trial was being undergone.

"But you needn't mind it, need you, since it isn't your fault?" returned Mrs. Lowell cheerfully. "So many good years are coming for you to study and learn in."

"What will happen when the summer is over?" asked the boy. "Are you going to take me with you? Will Mr. Lowell like me?"

"Indeed, he will. I am going to have you live near me."

"Not with you?"

"No, Bert, that wouldn't be best. I have been corresponding with a very nice young man whom I have known a long time, and he will be pleased to live with you and give you lessons."

"In drawing?" asked the boy.

"No, sir." Mrs. Lowell gave him the gay, smiling look he liked: it was so full of everything cheerful and kind. "No, sir, reading and writing and 'rithmetic."

"Oh," returned Bert, looking very serious.

"First you must give your time to study. Education is the foundation. Then, later, when you have gone through college—Oh, how proud I shall be when I go to see you graduate!"

"Shall you ever be proud of me?" asked the boy slowly.

"If you will let me," she answered. "It all remains with you."

"Then—then I'll try. I would rather stay with Mr. Blake when you go away, but if you want me to, I'll live with the young man."

"You will like him. He is only twenty years old, and he wants to go to college when he gets money enough. So he is glad to do tutoring now. That means helping a younger boy to learn."

"He will laugh at me," remarked Bert, looking off moodily. "I would rather stay with Mr. Blake and paint the snow on the evergreens."

"Oh, no, dear," said Mrs. Lowell. "That wouldn't please your grandfather. Besides, wouldn't you miss me?"

"I don't like Mr. Lowell," remarked the boy.

His friend laughed and took his hand between both her own. "We shall all love each other," she said, "and I shall hope to see you every day."

Bert thoughtfully visualized the boat carrying her away without him, and decided to be glad of the other horn of the dilemma. He had learned to smile, and he did so now, looking at her so trustfully that she patted his hand as she laid it down.

"That's a good boy," she said.

On the morning after the concert, Mrs. Wilbur regarded her child rather anxiously.

"Is it ever considered malarial here?" she asked.

"The opposite extreme," said Diana.

"Well, you look pale. You stayed out of doors too long. The night air anywhere—"

"Oh, but it has such a pleasant way of growing warmer here at evening. I wasn't cold, indeed, Mamma."

"And I heard that divine voice going back through the field singing Rubinstein," said Mrs. Wilbur. She sighed. "I am glad you are so matter-of-fact, Diana. He made me feel like a matinÉe girl, that man." Mrs. Wilbur was already planning her autumn musicale, and in fancy saw the air dark with automobiles parked in rows about the Wilbur residence in Pittsfield.

She left Diana now to go upstairs to make her list, and the girl went out of doors to gather sweet peas for the living-room. Pausing when her hands were full of the color and fragrance, she turned about to view the fresh morning landscape. As she did so she heard a gay whistling that grew louder as it neared.

The thrill of delicious terror, which had come over her on waking from her short sleep that morning, constricted her heart now.

Philip approached. "Good-morrow, fair one; posing for a study of Aurora?"

Diana looked around at him with deliberation. "I was deciding what individuals of the fauna and flora here were most marked."

Philip ducked his face down into her bouquet. "You chose the sweet pea, of course."

"No, I decided on swallows and daisies. The swallows are ravishing: so fearless and so beautiful. Have you noticed how they dart past, nearly brushing our cheeks, and how the sun brings out glints of blue in their plumage? I often mistake them for bluebirds with that touch of color on their breasts."

"Daisies and swallows," said Philip musingly. "They do seem to belong especially. It makes me think of a song." He paused. "Did you hear that booming of a new whistle this morning? There's a stranger in the cove, a swell yacht. I thought you might like to come down and see it."

"Yes, I should. Let me put the flowers in water and I will be with you." She reappeared quickly, and they struck off across the field to the road.

"How could I know it was a strange whistle?" asked the girl.

"I suppose you wouldn't, but to us islanders every familiar whistle is like the voice of a friend. Kelly is waiting for us in his boat. We want to row out to the beauty."

"It was very kind of you to come 'way up here for me," said Diana.

There came walking toward them along the road a man in white trousers, dark-blue coat, and cap with a gold insignia.

"That must be some one from the yacht now," said Philip.

Diana looked up, looked again, and with a cry of delight, ran forward straight into the arms of the man.

"Daddy, Daddy!" she cried, "how good of you!"

The tall, handsome stranger, with silver threads in his brown mustache, glanced up at his daughter's escort while he kissed her.

"I had to look you up, you know," he said while she held him tight, her arms around his neck.

Loosing him, she half turned to Philip. "This is Mr. Barrison, Daddy. We were just going down to see who was the stranger in the cove."

Mr. Wilbur shook hands with the tanned, blond youth in a perfunctory manner, scarcely looking at him.

"Mamma is here. Did you know it?" cried Diana.

"No. You don't say so! Kill both my birds with one stone, eh?"

The girl held out her hand to Philip. "I shall have to go back, Mr. Barrison. Daddy, take your card and write an order for Mr. Barrison and his friend to go over the yacht. They were just going to row out to it, and I was going with them. How little I thought it was you, dearest." She kissed him again and fumbled at her father's buttons.

Philip thought there was some reluctance in the cool glance the yachtsman flung him again. "Don't trouble yourself, Mr. Wilbur. Another time, perhaps."

"No, this minute," said Diana. Mr. Wilbur got at an inside pocket. "Mr. Barrison will take you deep-sea fishing if you can stay a few days. You have often spoken of it."

"A fisherman, eh?" said Mr. Wilbur, as he took out his card and wrote upon it.

Diana laughed nervously. "Oh, no, Daddy, but he knows the ropes here." She handed the card to Philip. "The Idlewild is worth visiting," she said, "and you never can tell with these yachtsmen. They slip off sometimes in the middle of the night. A bird in the hand, you know." She smiled. "Au revoir."

Philip, holding his card, looked after them as they went on up the road. Diana was hanging on her father's arm. The young fellow's face flushed deeply under the tan, and his lips came together firmly.

"That girl is worth all the adoration a man can waste on her," he thought. "I don't know that he is such a fool at that."

"What a summer, Veronica!" exclaimed Miss Burridge when she found that Charles Wilbur was going to eat mackerel and sweet potatoes at her table that noon.

"Some do have greatness thrust upon them, Aunt Priscilla. First the arrival of Prince Herbert, then King Charles himself."

"Yes, my knees feel kind o' queer, Veronica, and I think we'd better have the lobster salad this noon instead of saving it for night."

The other boarders eliminated themselves, so that the Wilbur family could occupy the piazza after dinner. Mr. Wilbur had praised the cooking and Veronica had carried the good report to the kitchen. He sat now with his wife and daughter, one on each side of him, and, as he smoked his cigar, looked off on the glory that is Casco Bay.

"You're pretty nearly on a boat here, aren't you?" he said.

"It is the most wonderful place in the world," said Diana fervently.

He turned to her and pinched her chin. The excited color that had risen in her happy surprise had faded. "You're not a good advertisement for it," he said. "You didn't eat anything at dinner and you look as if you had been up all night."

"I do think Diana feels the effect of all the excitement she went through in Boston," said Mrs. Wilbur; and forthwith she proceeded to tell the story of the grandson of her husband's old friend, and Diana's part in it. He had met the boy at table and he listened with absorbed interest.

"Well, little girl, well," he said kindly, "that was some experience. You'll have to brace up now."

"Oh, I'm going to, Daddy, and I want to purchase some of this island. I love it here. It inspires me."

"Better hold on," was the quiet response. "Why not take this place next summer? Engage Miss Burridge as cook and housekeeper, then bring some guests and run up here for a week or so, off and on, when you feel like it."

"That might be pleasant," returned Diana.

Her father smiled and patted her. "You are not always going to be a tired schoolgirl. Home may hold out more attractions next summer than you think."

"You don't know the rocks and the walks here yet, Daddy," said Diana wistfully.

"How many walks shall I have to take before you are ready to go back with me?"

"Of course we're going back with Daddy," said Mrs. Wilbur warningly.

"You like the yacht, don't you, Diana?" he asked.

"Indeed, I do. It was only that you were going to have such gay people this summer, and I couldn't be gay."

"I understand, dear. I've ditched the gay people now, and we will have a family party only, going back."

"That will be delightful," replied Diana.

"We haven't told you the most wonderful thing yet," said Mrs. Wilbur. "There is a most charming singer on the island. He gave a recital last night. Nothing commonplace. A very unusual voice. I'm engaging him for Pittsfield, Charles. He thinks he can come for a recital. He is young and little known yet, and so will be a novelty. I want you to hear him. You'll be wild, too."

"I promise not to be," responded her husband.

"But you can't help it, dear. Diana, why shouldn't we have a little dinner on the yacht and Mr. Barrison would probably sing afterward, and your father could hear him. Let me see now. Who would we have?"

"I don't care," put in Mr. Wilbur, "so long as you have that sparkling person who sat beside the boy at dinner."

"Mrs. Lowell," said Diana. "I'm so glad you appreciate Mrs. Lowell, Daddy."

"I'm not blind in one eye and I can see out of the other. I have my hearing, too, and her voice is as fresh as a robin's."

"But, oh, speaking of voices!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilbur, rolling up her eyes. "Well, then, Diana, supposing we have just Mr. Barrison and Mr. Kelly and Mrs. Lowell."

"And Veronica," said Diana.

"The young person who waits on the table," explained Mrs. Wilbur. "She and her aunt, Miss Burridge, are very worthy people."

"Veronica and Mr. Kelly are such good friends," said Diana. "It would be too bad not to ask her."

"Mr. Kelly is Mr. Barrison's accompanist," put in Mrs. Wilbur.

"Barrison?" repeated Mr. Wilbur. "Isn't that the name of the husky I met on the road just now?" The speaker removed his cigar to ask his daughter the question.

"Yes, Mamma, Mr. Barrison came up to take me down to row out in Mr. Kelly's boat to see the stranger in the cove. So when we encountered Daddy on the road, I persuaded him to give them an order to go over the yacht."

In spite of herself, the missing color came back into the girl's cheeks while she related this, and Charles Wilbur, whom no circumstance connected with his daughter ever escaped, observed it.

When next he was alone with his wife, he asked a few questions as to Diana's regard for the singer.

"No, no, my dear," she returned scornfully. "You don't know Diana. We have an extraordinary daughter, there is no mistake about that, but she was telling me the other day of her ideal for a husband. He is a fright, I can assure you, but full of charm and all that. She doesn't want to marry any man who is attractive to women."

"Wants to fool the vamps, eh?" was the laughing reply.

"Why doesn't she look at her daddy?" was the affectionate response. "The most attractive being on earth and one who never gave me a heartache?"

Charles Wilbur slipped his arm around his wife and kissed her. They were the best of friends.

"Don't you know, my dear, that a girl's father is always unique? He isn't a man."

"Oh," exclaimed Mrs. Wilbur, harking back to her find. "But, Charlie, you don't know how delighted I am to have such a prize for Pittsfield. I must show you my list."

She produced it and Mr. Wilbur, frowning patiently, looked it over. He hated lists.