e Farguson sails her." At times like these any topic was good
enough to begin on.

"How do you know?" Lucy asked, looking at the incoming schooner from
under her half-closed lids. The voice came like the thin piping of a
flute preceding the orchestral crash, merely sounded so as to let
everybody know it was present.

"One of my carriages was shipped by her. I paid Captain Farguson the
freight just before I went away."

"What's her name?"--slight tremolo--only a note or two.

"The Polly Walters," droned Max, talking at random, mind neither on the
sloop nor her captain.

"Named after his wife?" The flute-like notes came more crisply.

"Yes, so he told me." Max had now ceased to give any attention to his
answers. He had about made up his mind that something serious was the
matter and that he would ask her and find out.

"Ought to be called the Max Feilding, from the way she tacks about.
She's changed her course three times since I've been watching her."

Max shot a glance athwart his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the
pretty lips thinned and straightened and the half-closed eyes and
wrinkled forehead. He was evidently the disturbing cause, but in what
way he could not for the life of him see. That she was angry to the
tips of her fingers was beyond question; the first time he had seen her
thus in all their acquaintance.

"Yes-that would fit her exactly," he answered with a smile and with a
certain soothing tone in his voice. "Every tack her captain makes
brings him the nearer to the woman he loves."

"Rather poetic, Max, but slightly farcical. Every tack you make lands
you in a different port--with a woman waiting in every one of them."
The first notes of the overture had now been struck.

"No one was waiting in Philadelphia for me except Sue, and I only met
her by accident," he said good-naturedly, and in a tone that showed he
would not quarrel, no matter what the provocation; "she came in to see
her doctor. Didn't stay an hour."

"Did you take her driving?" This came in a thin, piccolo tone-barely
enough room for it to escape through her lips. All the big drums and
heavy brass were now being moved up.

"No; had nothing to take her out in. Why do you ask? What has happened,
little--"

"Take anybody else?" she interrupted.

"No."

He spoke quite frankly and simply. At any other time she would have
believed him. She had always done so in matters of this kind, partly
because she didn't much care and pa