ust arrange so that nobody but ourselves is ever aware of
the fact."

With a throaty gurgle, that might, or might not, have been meant for a
chuckle, the old man glided through the doors, which, by this time, he had
reached, and sliding rather than stepping into his machine, gave the
chauffeur some orders. Mortlake, a peculiar expression on his face, looked
after the car as it chugged off and then turned and re-entered the shop.
His head was bent, and he seemed to be lost in deep thought.

CHAPTER III.

A NAVAL VISITOR

Roy had departed, on an errand, for town. Peggy, indolently enjoying the
perfect drowsiness of noonday, was reclining in a gayly colored hammock
suspended between two regal maple trees on the lawn. In her hand was a
book. On a taboret by her side was a big pink box full of chocolates.

The girl was not reading, however. Her blue eyes were staring straight up
through the delicate green tracery of the big maples, at the sky above.
She watched, with lazy fascination, tiny white clouds drifting slowly
across the blue, like tiny argosies of the heavens. Her mind was far away
from Sandy Beach and its peaceful surroundings. The young girl's thoughts
were of the desert, the bleak, arid wastes of alkali, which lay so far
behind them now. Almost like events that had happened in another life.

Suddenly she was aroused from her reverie by a voice--a remarkably
pleasant voice:

"I beg your pardon. Is this the Prescott house?"

"Good gracious, a man!" exclaimed Peggy to herself, getting out of the
hammock as gracefully as she could, and with a rather flushed face.

At the gate stood a rickety station hack, which had approached on the
soft, dusty road almost noiselessly. Just stepping out of it was a
sunburned young man, very upright in carriage, and dressed in a light-gray
suit, with a jaunty straw hat. He carried a bamboo cane, which he switched
somewhat nervously as the pretty girl advanced toward him across the
velvet-like lawn.

"I am Lieut. Bradbury of the navy," said the newcomer, and Peggy noted
that his whole appearance was as pleasant and wholesome as his voice. "I
came--er in response to your letter to the department, in regard to the
forthcoming trials of aeroplanes for the service."

"Oh, yes," exclaimed Peggy, smothering an inclination to giggle,
"we--I--that is----"

"I presume that I have called at the right place," said the young officer,
with a smile. "They told me----"

"Oh, c