The Idler was hopelessly becalmed off Thomas's Point. Not a ripple could be seen down the Chesapeake, and the locusts and pines along the shore were shuddering uncomfortably with the heat of a July afternoon, hidden halfway to their tops in the summer haze. What was to be done? Five miles from home in a large sloop yacht filled with strangers from the North, the crew left behind to be out of the way, and every one thoroughly convinced that his neighbor was horribly bored!

Thornton gave the tiller a vicious shove, as if that would wake the yacht up, and glared forward along the row of parasols protecting fair faces from the sun and of hats cocked over noses that were screwed up with feelings too deep for words, and more intense than those produced by heat, he thought. By five o'clock we had sung every song that ever was written, and flirtations were becoming desperate. Mollie Brogden, comfortably lodged against the mast, was dropping her blue parasol lower and lower over one of the New York men as their conversation grew more and more intense with the heat, and Mrs. Brogden was becoming really alarmed.

The situation was maddening! Nothing on board to eat; soft-shell crabs and the best bill of fare of a Southern kitchen ordered at home for seven o'clock; a couple of fiddlers coming from "the Swamp" at nine; and Cousin Susan, the cook, even then promising little Stump Neal "all de bonyclÁbÁ he cu'd stow ef he'd jest friz dis yar cream fo' de new missis."

"It is too provoking for anything!" the new missis whispered to Thornton, as he stopped by his wife's side for an instant and moved on to consult with some of the married men who were smoking in luxuriant carelessness forward. Very little consolation he got there. Ellis from Annapolis said he had known calms last two days, and sundry forcible remarks were made when it was discovered that the last cigars were then in our mouths. This was the last straw. Thornton felt furious with every one, and muttered dark wishes that ante-war power might be restored to him over the person of Uncle Brian when we got home—if we ever did—as he reflected that that ancient African had guaranteed a breeze.

Mollie Brogden smiled lazily at him as Donaldson fanned her slowly, and waited until Thornton should pass, so that the talk which was leading up to the inscription of a clever piece of poetry on her fan might be continued.

"By the way, Donaldson," as a sudden inspiration seemed to strike Thornton, "did you ever hear anything more of Kitty after I left you at Christmas?"

The sweetness of that piece of poetry on the fan was never revealed. The blue parasol went up with a jump, and a look assured Donaldson that certain words had better have been left unsaid that afternoon if "Kitty" should not be satisfactorily explained. I felt sorry for him, for every one caught at the idea of something new, and the thought of an explanation to the whole of that boatload, keen for all sorts of badinage, would have tempted me overboard, I am sure. However, Donaldson smiled very composedly, and said he believed the family were still in Texas, although he had heard nothing more than Thornton already knew of their history.

Well, that simply made matters worse: Texas and Kitty were suggestive enough for anything, and I caught a whisper from Miss Brogden that seemed to imply that she doubted whether he had really been so inconsolable for last summer's diversions as he had tried to make her believe. That settled him, for I knew he had come down to Thornton's expressly to see her, and he assured us it was a very small story, but if we cared to hear it perhaps the breeze would come meanwhile, and he would try to give the facts exactly as they had come to his knowledge.

"We were a few hours out from Liverpool," he began, "and the smoking-room of the Russia was pretty well filled with all sorts of men, none of whom of course felt much at home yet, but who were gradually being shaken together by the civilizing influence of tobacco and the occasional lurches that the cross-chop of the Channel was favoring us with. I was sitting near the door with a man from Boston whom I found on board returning from a wedding-trip, and who, I discovered, had taken orders since leaving Harvard, where I had known him slightly as a bookish sort of fellow and not very agreeable; but as I was alone and his wife was quite pretty, I was glad to meet him.

"Well, we were running over old times, without paying much attention to the guide-book talk that was being poured out round us, when somebody laid a hand on my shoulder and one of the most attractive voices I ever heard asked 'if there was room for a stranger from Texas?' This formal announcement of himself by a newcomer made a little lull in the conversation, but my friend made room for him in our corner, and he quietly enveloped himself in smoke for the rest of the evening.

"He was not inattentive, though, to the drift of our talk, for when Hamilton mentioned having been at the Pan-Anglican, and spoke of the effect such conventions should produce, the Texan's cigar came out of his mouth and his blue eyes grew deeper in their sockets as he interrupted us with the remark: 'The conventions of all the Bible-men in the world would not have made La Junta any better if it had not been for Kitty. You know what Junta was before she came?' he continued, seeing us look a little surprised—'nothing but cards and drink, and—worse; and now'—and he laid his hand on his hip as if from habit—'now we have no trouble there any more.'

"The oddness of the expression 'Bible-men,' I remember, struck me at the time, but Hamilton made some explanatory reply, for the quiet force of the soft voice had a certain persuasiveness about it without the aid of his gesture, although the smoke was so thick that we could not see whether he carried the instruments of his country or not.

"Standing by the aft wheel-house, I found the Texan the next morning throwing biscuits to the gulls and gazing wistfully seaward.

"'Your first visit to Europe?' I said, steadying myself by the rail.

"'Yes, but I would give all last year's herd if I had never come, for Kitty is ill. I have travelled night and day since the telegram reached me, but La Junta is so far away I am afraid I shall be too late.'

"I wish I could give you an idea of his manner: it was more like that of a person who had just learned the language and was afraid of making mistakes, so hesitated before each word, giving every syllable its full value. He explained this simply enough afterward—that Kitty had broken him of swearing by making him think before he spoke."

"But you haven't told us who Kitty was," interrupted the blue parasol. "Was she light or dark?"—"his wife?"—"he wouldn't have dared!"—"a Texan wife?" and Mrs. Brogden looked very grave at the possibilities the flying questions aroused.

"No, she wasn't his wife; only the Yankee schoolmistress of La Junta. I never saw her. She must have been an angel, though, from his description; so I will leave the details for your acquaintance hereafter, Miss Brogden;" which outrageous flattery was received with contemptuous silence.

"She lived at Junta, and would canter over on Saturdays to Trocalara, the Texan's ranch, to teach his herdsmen's families. His partner, Parker, and he had a large cattle-ranch not far from the Mexican frontier, and Kitty could not have lived on a bed of roses, I fancy. Raids, stampedes and other border pleasantries were constantly occurring. I remember we thought him too gentle at first to have really hailed from the Plains; but one night, when Hamilton remonstrated with a man who, I believe, had allowed himself to get in that state described by the sailors as 'three sheets in the wind, and the fourth fluttering,' and was met with rather an uncivil reply, the Texan shut the offender up like a jack-knife with his heavy grip and the intimation that 'he proposed to settle the Bible-man's scores.'

"He grew quite intimate with Hamilton and me, and proved a delightful companion. He would quote readily from many of the later poets, and knew whole pages of Milton and Shakespeare by heart. Kitty had taught him these, he said, after she married Parker and came to live with him.

"'She made us read history-books first,' he said—'many, many volumes—but we soon got to like them better than anything else. The poetry she read to us; and so we never went to the shows in Junta after she came. Kitty has a good husband, as fine a fellow as ever lassoed a steer, but she is too pure for Junta. Parker loves her, and I love her too, but both of us do not make up for her Eastern comforts. And so last year, as we made a good herd and there were no raids to speak of, I came to New York to get a few luxuries for her. She wrote me then to go to Paris and see the Exposition; so I went because I thought she knew best, and that if I had seen the world a little I should be nearer to her, and it would not be quite so hard for her out there. And now she is ill, and—I am here!'

"He turned impatiently away to ask the quartermaster what we were doing by the last log. The speed appeared to satisfy him, for he sat quietly down again and told us how it was that Kitty had come to live with them.

"'For two years, you know'—assuming that we did know—'she spent Saturdays at Trocalara, teaching our people how to read and write. They were very rough at first—we all are out there—and did not care much; but she interested them, and brought picture-books for the little ones, and by and by she said she would come out on Sunday and we should have church!' with a triumphant look at Hamilton and his Pan-Anglican attendance. 'Yes, we had had a priest there before, but he was shot in a row at Bowler's Paradise, and no one cared to apply for a new one.

"'Kitty came up to the ranch the first Sunday, and asked us to come with her. We refused at first, but after a while, when we heard the singing, we went down to the quarters, and found her sitting under one of the trees with all the young ones clustered round her; and we waited there and listened until we began to feel very sorry that we had played so late at Bowler's the night before.

"'But Parker had been in luck, and he swore he would get her as fine a piano as could be brought from the States (he was a half-Mexican by birth) if she would sing like that for us at the ranch.

"'She stood up then, with all the young ones looking on in amazement, the light and shade playing over her through the cool, dark leaves, and, turning her large gray eyes full on Parker's face, said she would if we would promise never to go to Bowler's again.

"'I think Parker expected her to refuse to come altogether, because we had no women there, and we had heard the people in Junta talking of her quiet, modest ways. But no, she never thought of herself: she only thought of the nights at Bowler's, and wanted to save us from the end she had seen often enough in two years in Junta. At any rate, the piano came, and Parker had it sent as a sort of halfway measure to her house in Junta, where she and her mother lived, and we were as welcome as the light there always.

"'You have no idea of her music. They told me at concerts in Paris that I was hearing the finest musicians in Europe, but they were not like Kitty. They played for our money—Kitty played for our pleasure: it makes so much difference,' he added as his fingers drummed an accompaniment to the air he whistled.

"'One night Parker and I were sitting in a corner at Bowler's when we heard a Greaser—a Mexican, you know—that Parker had refused to play poker with the night before ask who the seÑorita was that had taken the spirit out of Parker.

"'We both started forward instantly, but as the man was evidently ignorant of our presence, Parker checked me with a fierce look in his eyes that showed that the spirit of his former days would be very apt to put a different ending on the conversation if it continued in that tone.

"'"Kitty," came the reply, as if that settled the matter.

"'"Kitty? Ah, your American names are so strange! Kitty! But she is beautiful, is this Kitty! I met her in the Gulch road this afternoon this side of Trocalara. Caramba! how she can ride! The Parker has good taste: I drink to my future acquaintance with her."

"'As he raised the glass to his lips Parker stood behind his chair and whispered, "If you drink that liquor, by God it will be the last drop that shall ever pass your lips!"

"'The next morning they sold the Mexican's horse and traps to pay for burying him and for the damage done, and Parker lay in bed at Kitty's with that in his side you would not have cared to see.

"'Kitty never knew why he fought, and never even looked a reproach. It was not much—I had seen him cut much worse in the stockyard at home—but somehow he did not get well. The weeks slipped by, and each time I called Kitty would say he was a little better, and a little better, and oh yes, he would be back next week; but next week came so often without Parker that at last, when the time came for changing pastures, I went with the herd and left him still at Junta.

"'I would willingly have taken his place, look you, if I had known the result, but perhaps the other way was the best, after all; for now Kitty has two men to serve her,' he added meditatively.

"'When I got back to Junta in October, Parker was quite recovered, I found out at the ranch, but was in town that evening, so I went quietly into Kitty's house to surprise them. As I crossed the hall I heard Parker's voice. Could I have mistaken the house? was it really his voice I heard? Yes: he was telling Kitty how he had broken the three-year-old colt to side-saddle, so when she came to Trocalara she must give up her old pony. I knew then why Kitty had kept him there so long: he had lost his reason and she wished to keep me from knowing it!

"'But no. I stood still and listened, and heard him tell her how he had always loved her, apparently going over an old story to her. My God! I would as soon have told the Virgin I loved her! And then I heard her voice. "When I am your wife—" she began.

"'It all flashed on me in an instant then. I slipped noiselessly out, and if they heard "Odd Trick's" gallop on the turf it was not because his hoofs lingered too long there.

"'I can't remember how I passed that night. The revelation had been so sudden that the words seemed to be written in my heart and to be carried through every vein with each beat. "When I am your wife—" What would the result be? Our Kitty was to be his wife? Could I still stay at the ranch? "When I am your wife—" and I loved her!

"'The next day I went into Junta and saw them both. I told Parker how the herd stood, and how the shooting had been in the mountains, but I never had the courage to look at her.

"'After a while she went to the piano and played "Home:" then she came and sat down by me and said, "I have told Parker I will go home with him: I will try to be a sister to you."

"'I believe I only stared at her, and then wrung Parker's hand and went out.

"'He married her the next month, and—and—Trocalara has been heaven ever since.

"'I never knew what a Christian was before she came: you know we have no faith in Texas in things we can't draw a bead on. But when she read me the story of the Scribes and Pharisees and Christ I felt ashamed to be like those Flat-heads and Greasers in the New Testament who did not believe in him; and now I feel sure of knowing some one in heaven, for Kitty has promised to find me there.'

"I forget a great many of the incidents he told us," Donaldson went on in the quiet that was almost equal to the calm around us; "and I dare say it would bore you to listen. But he certainly was the most extraordinary man I ever met. I can't do justice to his expressions, for they lack his soft voice and curious hesitation. I wish we had him here, though."

"Did you never hear of him again?" some one asked.

"Yes. When we reached New York I found him standing in his old place by the aft wheel-house in a dazed sort of way, with apparently no intention of going ashore; so I asked him what hotel he intended to stop at. His only answer was to hand me a letter dated some days before:

That was all the letter said, but as I looked at his white face and burning eyes I saw it was what he had feared.

"As I bade him good-night at the hotel that evening he asked me, 'Do you really feel sure that I could find her—there?'

"'Yes: she said so, did she not?' I replied.

"'I will try,' he said simply.

"The next morning they found him with a bullet-hole in his temple. He had gone to find Kitty."

"Heads!" said Thornton as the boom swung over and the swirl from the Idler's bow told us the wind had come. As I changed my place I caught Miss Brogden's eye, and felt satisfied that Donaldson was forgiven.

Lawrence Buckley.