l pleasant way.

"Right again and topside up," she exclaimed, brightly. "Sammy was just
telling me what a hard time you had to make the cove, yesterday. Those
broad shoulders of yours give you an advantage over my husband. He would
have had to go off towards North Cove. It is fine to be as strong and big
as you."

"Mrs. Barnett," I said, fervently, "you are an awful humbug."

She cocked her head a little to one side, with a pretty motion she
sometimes unconsciously affects.

"Out with it," she said. "Explain yourself so that I may repent and be
forgiven."

"There is nothing to be forgiven you," I declared. "I would like to place
you on a pedestal and direct the proper worshipping of you. None but the
most superior kind of a woman can take a fool chap and turn his folly
around so that he may be rather pleased with it. I expected a good
wigging from you, and deserve it."

"That sort of thing is one of the most important functions and privileges
of a woman," she answered. "Men need it all the time for the smoothing
out of their ruffled feelings."

"The men shouldn't allow them to get ruffled," I said.

"There speaks the wise man," she laughed, "nor should the sea permit
itself to get stormy. Were you not explaining to me the other day that
the wind allows the climbing up of the sap in swaying trees, and that the
stirring of the waters keeps them pure and fit to maintain the unending
life beneath them?"

"It seems to me that I did."

"Well, I suppose that a little storminess now and then serves some useful
purpose in a man, and if he only can have a woman about him, to see that
it doesn't go too far, it will do him a lot of good. You should get
married."

"Of course I ought to," I replied, "and moreover I would give everything
in the world if only...."

I interrupted myself, considering that since Dora Maclennon and I are not
engaged, and that she merely represents to me a longing which I often
consider as a hopeless one, I have no right to discuss her, even with
this dear kind woman.

"You have already found the girl?" asked Mrs. Barnett, her eyes filled
with the interested sympathy always shown by the gentler sex in such
matters.

"I have found her," I replied, "but she is very far away from me, and it
is just a case of having to grin and bear it."

Then her blue eyes opened widely, and with an exquisitely gentle touch
she placed her hand on my arm.

"You poor dear boy!" she said, with the sweetest l