EARLY on a moonlit evening in January, 1875, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Chase were approaching St. Augustine. They had come by steamer up the broad St. Johns, the beautiful river of Florida, to the lonely little landing called Tocoi; here they had intrusted themselves to the Atlantic Ocean Railroad. This railroad undertook to convey travellers across the peninsula to the sea-coast, fifteen miles distant; and the promise was kept. But it was kept in a manner so leisurely that more than once Horace Chase had risen and walked to and fro, as though, somehow, that would serve to increase the speed. The rolling-stock possessed by the Atlantic Ocean Railroad at that date consisted of two small street-cars, one for passengers, one for luggage; Chase's promenade, therefore, confined as it was to the first car, had a range of about four steps. "I'm ridiculously fidgety, and that's a fact," he said to his wife, laughing at himself. "I can be lazy enough in a Pullman, for then I can either read the papers or go to sleep. But down here there are no papers to read. And who can sleep in this jolting? I believe I'll ask that darky to let me drive the mules!" "Do," said Ruth. "Then I can be out there with you on the front platform." As there were no other passengers (save Petie Trone, Esq., asleep in his travelling basket), Abram, the negro driver, gave up the reins with a grin. Taking his station on the step, he then admonished the volunteer from time to time as follows: "Dish yere's a bad bit; take keer, boss." "Jess ahead de rail am splayed out on de lef'. Yank 'em hard to de right, or we'll sut'ny run off de track. We ginerally do run off de track 'bout yere." On each side was a dense forest veiled in the gray long moss. Could that be snow between the two black lines of track ahead? No snow, however, was possible in this warm atmosphere; it was but the spectral effect of the moonlight, blanching to an even paler whiteness the silvery sand which formed the road-bed between the rails. This sand covered the sleepers to such a depth that the mules could not step quickly; there was always a pailful of it on each foot to lift and throw off. They moved on, therefore, in a sluggish trot, the cow-bells attached to their collars keeping up a regular tink-tank, tink-tank. The tableau of her husband driving these spirited steeds struck Ruth as comical. She was seated on a camp-stool by his side, and presently she broke into a laugh. "Oh, you do look so funny, Horace! If you could only see yourself! You, so particular about horses that you won't drive anything that is not absolutely perfect, there you stand taking the greatest pains, and watching solemnly every quiver of the ear of those old mules!" They were alone, Abram having gone to the baggage-car to get his tin horn. "Come, now, are you never going to stop making fun of me?" inquired Chase. "How do you expect to hit St. Augustine to-night if this fast express runs off the track?" But in spite of his protest, it was easy to see that he liked to hear her laugh. Abram, coming back, put the horn to his lips and blew a resounding blast; and presently, round a curve, the half-way station came into view—namely, a hut of palmetto boughs on the barren, with a bonfire before it. The negro station-men, beguiling their evening leisure by dancing on the track to their own singing and the music of a banjo, did not think it necessary to stop their gyrations until the heads of the mules actually touched their shoulders. Even then they made no haste in bringing out the fresh team which was to serve as motive power to St. Augustine, and Mr. and Mrs. Chase, leaving the car, strolled up and down near by. The veiled forest had been left behind; the rest of the way lay over the open pine-barrens. The leaping bonfire, the singing negroes, and the little train on its elevated snow-like track contrasted with the wild, lonely, silent, tree-dotted plain, stretching away limitlessly in the moonlight on all sides. "Perhaps Petie Trone, Esq., would like to take a run," said Ruth. Hastening into the car with her usual heedlessness, she tripped and nearly fell, Chase, who had followed, catching her arm just in time to save her. "Some of these days, Ruthie, you will break your neck. Why are you always in such a desperate hurry?" "Talk about hurry!" answered Ruth, as she unstrapped the basket and woke the lazy Mr. Trone. "Who saw the whole of Switzerland in five days? and found it slow at that?" And then they both laughed. After a stretch, Petie Trone decided to make a foray over the barren; his little black figure was soon out of sight. "Horace, now that we are here, I wish you would promise to stay. Can't we stay at least until the middle of March? It's lovely in Florida in the winter," Ruth declared, as they resumed their walk. "Well, I'll stay as long as I can. But I must go to California on business between this and spring," Chase answered. "Why don't you make one of the Willoughbys do that? They never do anything!" "That's all right; I'm the working partner of the firm; it was so understood from the beginning. The Willoughbys only put in capital; all but Walter, of course, who hasn't got much. But Walter's a knowing young chap, who will put in brains. My California business, however, has nothing to do with the Willoughbys, Ruthie; it's my own private affair, that is. If I succeed, and I think I shall, it'll about double my pile. Come, you know you like money." He drew her hand through his arm and held it. "Oh, leave out the carriages, do," interrupted Ruth. "When it comes to anything connected with a horse, who spends money—you or I?" "My one small spree compared to your fifty!" "Small!" she repeated. "Wherever we go, whole troops of horses appear by magic!" Then, after a moment, she let her head rest against his shoulder as they strolled slowly on. "You are only too good to me," she added, in another tone. "Well, I guess that's about what I want to be," Chase answered, covering, as he often did, the deep tenderness in his heart with a vein of jocularity. The Atlantic Ocean Railroad's terminal station at St. Augustine consisted of a platform in the sand and another flaring bonfire. At half-past six Mrs. Franklin, Dolly, and Anthony Etheridge were waiting on this platform for the evening train. With them was a fourth person—Mrs. Lilian Kip. "Oh, I can scarcely wait to see her!" exclaimed this lady, excitedly. "Will she be the same? But no. Impossible!" "She is exactly the same," answered Dolly, who, seated on an empty dry-goods box, was watching the bonfire. "But you must remember that Ruth did not come to Florida last winter after her marriage. And this summer, when I was in Asheville, she was abroad. "Yes, yes," answered Etheridge, gallantly. In his heart he added: "And therefore the more marriage the better? Is that what you are thinking of, you idiot?" The presence of Mrs. Kip always tore Etheridge to pieces. He had never had any intention of marrying, and he certainly had no such intention now. Yet he could not help admiring this doubly widowed Lilian very deeply, after a fashion. And he knew, too—jealously and angrily he knew it—that before long she would inevitably be led to the altar a third time; so extremely marriageable a woman would never lack for leaders. "Ruth is handsomer," remarked Mrs. Franklin; "otherwise she is unchanged. You will see it for yourself, Lilian, when she comes." The mother's tone was placid. All her forebodings had faded away, and she had watched them disappear with thankful eyes. For Ruth was happy; there could be no doubt about that. In the year that had passed since her marriage, she had returned twice to Asheville, and Mrs. Franklin also had spent a month at her son-in-law's home in New York. On Chase happening to come in at this moment, she immediately repeated to him all that she had been saying. He agreed; then added, with his humorous deliberation, "But you don't seem to think quite so much of my old school-mate as I supposed you did?" "Sisters-in-law, Mr. Chase, are seldom very devoted friends," explained Dolly, going on with her embroidery. Dolly always did something that required her close attention whenever Horace Chase was present. "How, indeed, can they be? A sister sees one side of her brother's nature, and sees it correctly; a wife sees another side, and with equal accuracy. Each honestly believes that the other is entirely wrong. Their point of view, you see, is so different!" The waiting group at the St. Augustine station on this January evening heard at last the blast of Abram's horn, and presently the train came in, the mules for the last few yards galloping madly, their tin bells giving out a clattering peal, and Chase still acting as driver, with Ruth beside him. Affectionate greetings followed, for all the Franklins were warmly attached to each other. Mrs. Kip was not a Franklin, but she was by nature largely affectionate; she was probably the most affectionate person in Florida. To the present occasion she contributed several tears of joy. Then she signalled to Juniper, her colored In a rickety barouche drawn by two lean horses the others followed, laughing and talking gayly. Chase got on very well with his mother-in-law; and he supposed, also, that he got on fairly well with Dolly: he had not divined Dolly's mental attitude towards him, which was that simply of an armed neutrality. Dolly would have been wildly happy if, for herself and her mother at least, she could have refused every cent of his money. This had not been This youngest child really was still, in the mother's eyes, her "baby." And when the baby, sitting down in her lap, put her arms round her neck and pleaded so lovingly, the mother yielded. Her debts were now all paid; it was a secret between herself and Ruth. The disappearance of the burden was a great relief to the mother, though not so much so as it would have been to some women; for it was characteristic of Mrs. Franklin that she had never thought there To Dolly, unaware of the payment of the debts, the acceptance even of the restoration of the two houses had been bitter enough; for though the money came through Ruth's hands, it was nevertheless provided by this stranger. "If I had only been well, I could have worked and saved mother from this," she thought. "But I am helpless. Not only that, but a care! Nobody stops to think how dreary a lot it is to be always a care. And how hard, hard, never to be able to give, but always to have to accept, accept, and be thankful!" But Dolly, at heart, had a generous nature; she would not cloud even by a look her mother's contentment or the happiness of Ruth. So when Chase said, as the barouche swayed crazily through the deep mud-hole which for years formed the junction between the station lane and the main road, "This old rattletrap isn't safe, ma'am. Is it the best St. Augustine can do? You ought to have something better!"—when Chase said this to her mother, Dolly even brought forward a smile. The rattletrap followed the long causeway which crossed the salt-marsh and the San Sebastian River. Entering the town beneath an archway of foliage, this causeway broadened into a sandy street under huge pride-of-India trees, whose branches met overhead. Old Miss L'Hommedieu's winter residence was not far from St. Francis Barracks, at the south end of the town. It was an old coquina house which rose directly from a little-travelled roadway. An open space on the other side of this roadway, and the absence of houses, gave it the air of being "on the bay," as it was called. Chase had taken, for a term of years, another house not far distant, which really was on the bay. He had done this to please Ruth. It was not probable that they should spend many winters in Florida; but in case they should wish to come occasionally, it would be convenient to have a house ready. "And when we don't want it, Jared could stay here now and then," Ruth had suggested. "Your brother? I guess he isn't going to be a very easy chap to arrange for, here or anywhere," Chase had answered, laughing. "We've already slipped up once pretty well—Charleston, you know." Then, seeing her face grow troubled, "But he'll take another view of something else I have in mind," he went on. "If my California project turns out as I hope, it will be absolutely necessary for me to have a confidential man to see to the New York part of it—some one whom I can trust. And I shall be able to convince Franklin that this time, at any rate, instead of its being For Jared was now again at Raleigh, working as a clerk for the man who had bought his former business; he had resigned his Charleston place in spite of Ruth, in spite even of Genevieve. He had waited until the wedding was over, in order that Ruth might not be made unhappy at the moment; and then he had done it. Notwithstanding this, his wife had never had so much money in her life as she had now. For she and Ruth, with the perfectly good conscience which women have in such matters, had combined together, as it were, to circumvent secretly the obstinate naval officer. Ruth was warmly attached to her brother; he was the one person who had been able to control her when she was a child; his good opinion had been a hundred times more important to her than that of her mother and Dolly. Now that she was rich, she was bent upon helping him; and having found that she could not do it directly, she had turned all her intelligence towards doing it indirectly, through the capable, the willing Genevieve. Mrs. Jared Franklin, Junior, had quietly and skilfully bought land in Asheville (in readiness for the coming railroad); she had an account at the bank; she had come into the possession of bonds and stock; she had enlarged her house, and she had also given herself the pleasure (she called it the benediction) of laying the foundations of an addition to the Colored Home. As she Amid these various transactions Jared Franklin's mother had been obliged to make up her mind as to what her own attitude should be. It had been to her a relief unspeakable, an overmastering joy, to know that her son would not, after all, sink to harassing poverty. Soothed by this, lulled also by the hope that before very long he would of his own accord consent to give up what was so distasteful to him, she had virtually condoned the underhand partnership between Ruth and Genevieve, arranging the matter with her conscience after her own fashion, by simply turning her head away from the subject entirely. As she had plenty of imagination, she had ended by really convincing herself that she was not aware of what was going on, because she had not heard any of the details. (She had, in fact, refused to hear them.) This left her free to say to Jared (if necessary) that she had known nothing. But she hoped that no actual words of this sort would be required. Her temperament, indeed, had always been largely made up of hope. It was true that Jared for the present was still at The house which Horace Chase had taken at St. Augustine was much larger than old Miss L'Hommedieu's abode; it was built of coquina, like hers, but it faced the sea-wall directly, commanding the inlet; from its upper windows one could see over Anastasia Island opposite, and follow miles of the blue southern sea. Ruth's French maid, FÉlicitÉ, had arrived at this brown mansion the day before, with the heavy luggage; to-night, however, new-comers were to remain with the mother in the smaller house. When the barouche reached Mrs. Franklin's door, Etheridge, Mrs. Kip, and the heart were already there. "I won't stay now," said Mrs. Kip. "But may I look in later? Evangeline Taylor is perfectly wild to come." When she returned, a little after eight, Chase was still in the dining-room with Anthony Etheridge, who had dined there. The heart had been suspended from a stout hook on the parlor wall, and Ruth happened a moment before to have placed herself under it, when, having discovered her old guitar in a closet, "I thought your daughter was coming?" said Mrs. Franklin, peering towards the door over her glasses. "Evangeline Taylor will be here in a moment," answered her mother; "her governess is bringing her." And presently there entered a tall, a gigantically tall girl, with a long, solemn, pale face. As she was barely twelve, she was dressed youthfully in a short school-girl frock with a blue sash. Advancing, she kissed Ruth; then, retiring to a corner, she seated herself, arranged her feet in an appropriate pose, and crossed her hands in her lap. A little later, when no one was looking, she furtively altered the position of her feet. Then she changed once or twice the arrangement of her hands. This being settled at last to her satisfaction, she turned her attention to her features, trying several different contortions, and finally settling upon a drawing in of the lips and a slight dilatation of the nostrils. And all this not in the least from vanity, but simply from an intense personal conscientiousness. "The dear child longed to see you, Ruth. She danced for joy when she heard you had come," explained the mother. "Yes, Evangeline and I have always been great chums," answered Ruth, good-naturedly. The room was brightly lighted, and the light showed Mrs. Kip, having paid her tribute to "the association" (she did not say whether the feeling was connected with Andrew Taylor, her first husband, or with the equally departed John Kip, her second), now seated herself beside Ruth, and, with the freedom of old friendship, examined her costume. "I know you had that made in Paris!" she said. "Simple as it is, it has a sort of something or other! And, oh, what a beautiful bracelet! What splendid rings!" Ruth wore no ornaments save that on her right wrist was a band of sapphires, and on her right hand three of the same gems, all the stones being of great beauty. On her left hand she wore the wedding circlet, with her engagement-ring and the philopena guard over it. In answer to the exclamation, she had taken off the jewels and tossed them all into Mrs. Kip's lap. Mrs. Kip looked at them, her red lips open. To some persons, Lilian Kip seemed beautiful, in spite of the fact that the outline of her features, from certain points of view, was almost grotesque; she had a short nose, a wide mouth, a broad face, She had put Ruth's rings on her hands and the bracelet on her wrist; now she surveyed the effect with her head on one side, consideringly. While she was thus engaged, Mrs. Franklin's little negro boy, Samp, ushered in another visitor—Walter Willoughby. "Welcome to Florida, Mrs. Chase," he said, as he shook hands with Ruth. "As you are an old resident, however, it's really your husband whom I have come to greet; he is here, isn't he?" "Yes; he is in the dining-room with Commodore "Thanks; I'll wait here," Walter answered. In reality he would have preferred to go and have a cigar with Chase. But as he had not seen his partner's wife since she returned from Europe, it was only courtesy as well as good policy to remain where he was. For Mrs. Chase was a power. She was a power because her husband would always wish to please her; this desire would come next to his money-making, and would even, in Walter's opinion (in case there should ever be a contest between the two influences), "run in close!" Mrs. Kip had hastily divested herself of the jewels, and replaced them on Ruth's wrist and hands, with many caressing touches. "Aren't they lovely?" she said to Walter. "That little one, the guard, was my selection," he replied, indicating the philopena circlet. "And not this also?" said Ruth, touching her engagement ring. "No; that was my uncle Richard's choice; Chase wrote to him the second time, not to me," Walter answered. "I'm afraid he didn't like my taste." He laughed; then turned to another subject. "You were playing the guitar when I came in, Mrs. Chase; won't you sing something?" "I neither play nor sing in a civilized way," Ruth "How can you say so," protested Mrs. Kip, "when, as a family, you are so musical?" Then, summoning to her eyes an expression of great intelligence, she added: "And I should know that you were, all of you, from your thick eyebrows and very thick hair. You have heard of that theory, haven't you, Mr. Willoughby? That all true musicians have very thick hair?" "Also murderers; I mean the women—the murderesses," remarked Dolly. "Oh, Dolly, what ideas you do have! Who would ever think of associating murderesses with music? Music is so uplifting," protested the rosy widow. "We should take care that it is not too much so," Dolly answered. "Lots of us are ridiculously uplifted. We know one thing perhaps, and like it. But we remain flatly ignorant about almost everything else. In a busy world this would do no harm, if we could only be conscious of it. But no; on we go, deeply conceited about the one thing we know and like, and loftily severe as to the ignorance of other persons concerning it. It doesn't occur to us that upon other subjects save our own, we ourselves are presenting precisely the same spectacle. A Beethoven, when it comes to pictures, may find something very taking in a daub representing a plump child with a skipping-rope, and the legend: 'See me jump!' A painter of the highest power "Carry it a little further, Miss Franklin," said Walter Willoughby; "it has often been noted that criminals delight in the most sentimental tales." "That isn't the same thing," Dolly answered. "However, to take up your idea, Mr. Willoughby, it is certainly true that it is often the good women who read with the most breathless interest the newspaper reports of crimes." "Oh no!" exclaimed Mrs. Kip. "Yes, they do, Lilian," Dolly responded. "And when it comes to tales, they like dreadful events, with plenty of moral reflections thrown in; the moral reflections make it all right. A plain narrative of an even much less degree of evil, given impartially, and without a word of comment by the author—that seems to them the unpardonable thing." "Well, and isn't it?" said Mrs. Kip. "Shouldn't people be taught—counselled?" "And it's for the sake of the counsel that they read such stories?" inquired Dolly. During this conversation, Chase, in the dining-room, had risen and given a stretch, with his long arms out horizontally. He was beginning to feel bored by the talk of Anthony Etheridge, "the ancient swell," as he called him. In addition, he had a vision of finishing this second cigar in a comfortable chair in the parlor (for Mrs. Franklin had no objection to cigar smoke), with Ruth near by; for it always amused him to hear his wife laugh and talk. The commodore, meanwhile, having assigned to himself from the day of the wedding the task of "helping to civilize the Bubble," never lost an opportunity to tell him stories from his own more cultivated experience—"stories that will give him ideas, and, by Jove! phrases, too. He needs 'em!" He had risen also. But he now detained his companion until he had finished what he was saying. "So there you have the reason, Mr. Chase, why I didn't marry. I simply couldn't endure the idea of an old woman's face opposite mine at table year after year; for our women grow old so soon! Now you, sir, have shown the highest wisdom in this respect. I congratulate you." "I don't know about that," answered Chase, as he turned towards the door. "Ruth will have an old man's face opposite her before very long, won't she?" "Not at all, my good friend; not at all. Men Cordial greetings took place between Chase and Walter Willoughby. "Your uncles weren't sure you would still be here," Chase remarked. "They thought perhaps you wouldn't stay." "I shall stay awhile—outstay you, probably," answered Walter, smiling. "I can't imagine that you'll stand it long." "Doing nothing, you mean? Well, it's true I have never loafed much," Chase admitted. "You loafed all summer in Europe," the younger man replied, and his voice had almost an intonation of complaint. He perceived this himself, and smiled a little over it. "So that was loafing, was it," commented Ruth, in a musing tone—"catching trains and coaches on a full run, seeing three or four cantons, half a dozen towns, two passes, and several ranges of mountains every day?" All laughed, and Mrs. Kip said: "Did you rush along at that rate? That was baddish. There's no hurry here; that's one good thing. The laziest place! We must get up a boat-ride soon, Ruth. Boat-drive, I mean." Mrs. Franklin meanwhile, rising to get something, knocked over accidentally the lamplighters which she had just completed, and Chase, who saw it, jumped up to help her collect them. "Why, how many you have made!" he said, gallantly. She was not pleased by this innocent speech; she had no desire to be patted on the back, as it were, about her curled strips of paper; she curled them to please herself. She made no reply, save that her nose looked unusually aquiline. "Yes, mother is tremendously industrious in lamplighters," remarked Dolly. "Her only grief is that she cannot send them to the Indian missions. You can send almost everything to the Indian missions; but somehow lamplighters fill no void." "Do you mean the new mission we are to have here—the Indians at the fort?" asked Walter Willoughby. "They are having a big dance to-night." Ruth looked up. "Should you like to see it?" he went on, instantly taking advantage of an opportunity to please her. "Nothing easier. We could watch it quite comfortably, you know, from the ramparts." "I should like it ever so much! Let us go at once, before it is over!" exclaimed Ruth, eagerly. "Ruth! Ruth!" said her mother. "After travelling all day, Mr. Chase may be tired." "Not at all, ma'am," said Chase. "I don't take much stock in Indians myself," he went on, to his wife. "Do you really want to go?" "Oh yes, Horace. Please." "And the commodore will go with me," said Mrs. "But we must take Evangeline Taylor home first," said Mrs. Kip. "We'll go round by way of Andalusia, commodore. It would never do to let her see an Indian dance at her age," she added, affectionately, lifting her hand high to pat her daughter's aerial cheek. "It would make her tremble like a babe." "Oh, did you hear her 'baddish'!" said Dolly, as, a few minutes later, they went up the steps that led to the sea-wall, Chase and Walter Willoughby, Ruth and herself. "And did you hear her 'boat-drive'? She has become so densely confused by hearing Achilles Larue inveigh against the use of 'ride' for 'drive' that now she thinks everything must be drive." Chase and Walter Willoughby smiled; but not unkindly. There are some things which the Dolly Franklins of the world are incapable, with all their cleverness, of comprehending; one of them is the attraction of a sweet fool. The sea-wall of St. Augustine stretches, with its smooth granite coping, along the entire front of the old town, nearly a mile in length. On the land side its top is but four or five feet above the roadway; towards the water it presents a high, dark, wet surface, against which comes the wash of the ocean, or rather of the inlet; for the harbor is protected by a long, low island lying outside. It is this island, called Anastasia, that has the ocean beach. The Walter thought Miss Franklin tiresome. With the impatience of a young fellow, he did not care for her clever talk. He was interested in clever men; in woman he admired other qualities. He had spent ten days in Asheville during the preceding summer in connection with Chase's plans for investment there, and he had been often at L'Hommedieu during his stay; but he had found Genevieve more attractive than Dolly—Genevieve and Mrs. Kip. For Mrs. Kip, since her second widowhood, had spent her summers at Asheville, for the sake of "the mountain atmosphere;" ("which means Achilles atmosphere," Mrs. Franklin declared). This evening Walter had felt a distinct sense of annoyance when Dolly had announced her intention of going with them to see the Indian dance, for this would arrange their party in twos. He had no desire for a tÊte-À-tÊte with Dolly, and neither did he care for a tÊte-À-tÊte with Ruth; his idea had been to accompany Mr. and Mrs. Chase as a third. However, he made the best of it; Walter always did that. He had the happy faculty of getting all the enjoyment possible out of the present, whatever it might be. Postponing, therefore, to the next day his plan for making himself agreeable to the Chases, he led the way gayly enough to the fort. Fort San Marco is the most imposing ancient structure which the United States can show. Begun in the seventeenth century, when Florida was a province of Spain, it has turrets, ramparts, and bastions, a portcullis and barbacan, a moat and drawbridge. Its water-battery, where once stood the Spanish cannon, looks out to sea. Having outlived its use as a fortification, it was now sheltering temporarily a band of Indians from the far West, most of whom had been sentenced to imprisonment for crime. With the captives had come their families, for this imprisonment was to serve also as an experiment; the red men were to be instructed, influenced, helped. At present the education had not had time to progress far. The large square interior court, open to the sky, was to-night lighted by torches of pine, which were thrust into the iron rings that had served the Spaniards for the same purpose long before. The Indians, adorned with paint and feathers, were going through their wild evolutions, now moving round a large circle in a strange squatting attitude, now bounding aloft. Their dark faces, either from their actual feelings or from the simulated ferocity appropriate to a war-dance, were very savage, and with their half-naked bodies, their whoops and yells, they made a picture that was terribly realistic to the whites who looked on from the ramparts above, for it needed but little imagination to fancy a bona fide attack—the surprise of the lonely frontier farm- Ruth, half frightened, clung to her husband's arm. Mrs. Kip, after a while, began to sob a little. "I'm thinking—of the wo-women they have probably scalped on the pla-ains" she said to Etheridge. "What?" he asked, unable to hear. "Never mind; we'll convert them," she went on, drying her eyes hopefully. For a Sunday-school was to be established at the fort, and she had already promised to take a class. But Dolly was on the side of the Indians. "The crimes for which these poor creatures are imprisoned here are nothing but virtues upside down," she shouted. "They killed white men? Of course they did. Haven't the white men stolen all their land?" "But we're going to Christianize them," yelled Mrs. Kip, in reply. They were obliged to yell, amid the deafening noise of the dance and the whoopings below. Ruth had a humorous remark ready, when suddenly her husband, to Walter's amusement, put his hand over her lips. She looked up at him, laughing. She understood. "Funniest thing in the world," he had once said to her, "but the more noise there is, the more incessantly women will talk. Ever noticed? They are capable of carrying on a shrieking conversation in the cars all day long." The atmosphere grew dense with the smoke from "Why did you let her come? I was amazed when I saw her here," said Etheridge, testily. For Etheridge was dead tired. He hated the Indians; he detested the choking smoke; he loathed open ramparts at this time of night. Ruth and Mrs. Franklin had themselves been surprised by Dolly's desire to see the dance. But they always encouraged any wish of hers to go anywhere; such inclinations were so few. Walter Willoughby, meanwhile, prompt as ever, had already found a vehicle—namely, the phaeton of Captain March, the army officer in charge of the Indians; it was waiting outside to take Mrs. March back to the Magnolia Hotel. "The captain lends it with pleasure; as soon, therefore, as Miss Franklin is able, I can drive her home," suggested Walter. But Chase, who knew through his wife some of the secrets of Dolly's suffering, feared lest she might now be attacked by pain; he would not trust her to a careless young fellow like Walter. "I'll take her myself," he said. "And Ruth, you can come back with the others, along the sea-wall." Dolly, who had recovered consciousness, protested against this arrangement. But her voice was only a whisper; Chase, paying no attention to it, lifted her The others also left the ramparts, and started homeward, following the sea-wall. This granite pathway is not straight; it curves a little here and there, adapting itself to the line of the shore. To-night it glittered in the moonlight. It was high tide, and the water also glittered as it came lapping against the stones waveringly, so that the granite somehow seemed to waver, too. Etheridge was last, behind Mrs. Kip. He did not wish to make her dizzy by walking beside her, he said. Suddenly he descended. On the land side. Mrs. Kip, hearing the thud of his jump, turned her head, surprised. And then the commodore (though he was still staggering) held out his hand, saying, "We get off here, of course; it is much our nearest way. That's the reason I stepped down," he carelessly added. Mrs. Kip had intended to follow the wall as far as the Basin. But she always instinctively obeyed directions given in a masculine voice. If there were two masculine voices, she obeyed the younger. In this case the younger man did not speak. She acquiesced, therefore, in the elder's sharp "Come!" For poor Etheridge had been so jarred by his fall that his voice had become for the moment falsetto. Mrs. Chase and Walter Willoughby, thus deserted, continued on their way alone. It was a beautiful night. The moon lighted the water so brilliantly that the flash of the light-house on Anastasia seemed superfluous; the dark fort loomed up in massive outlines; a narrow black boat was coming across from the island, and, as there was a breeze, the two Minorcans it carried had put up a rag of a sail, which shone like silver. "How fast they go!" said Ruth. "Would you like to sail home?" asked Walter. He did not wait for her answer, for, quick at divination, he had caught the wish in her voice. He hailed the Minorcans; they brought their boat up to the next flight of water-steps; in two minutes from the time she had first spoken, Ruth, much amused by this unexpected adventure, was sailing down the inlet. "Oh, how wet! I didn't think of that," Walter had exclaimed as he saw the water in the bottom of the boat; and with a quick movement he had divested himself of his coat, and made a seat of it for her in the driest place. She had had no time to object, they were already off; she must sit down, and sit still, for their tottlish craft was only a dugout. Walter, squatting opposite, made jocular remarks about his appearance as he sat there in his shirt-sleeves. It was never difficult for Ruth to laugh, and presently, as the water gained on her companion in spite of all his efforts, she gave way to mirth. She laughed The breeze and the tide were both in their favor; they glided rapidly past the bathing-house, the Plaza, the Basin, and the old mansion which Chase had taken. Then Walter directed the Minorcans towards another flight of water-steps. "Here we are," he said. "And in half the time it would have taken us if we had walked. We have come like a shot." He took her to her mother's door. Then, pretty wet, with his ruined coat over his arm, he walked back along the sea-wall to the St. Augustine Hotel. |