wer to touch a single
penny until I am of age. That is why it has gone on increasing and
increasing."

"And when are you of age?" he asked.

"Next year," she answered.

"By that time, I imagine," Andrew continued, "your stepmother will have
sold you to some broken-down hanger-on of hers. Haven't you any other
relations, Miss Jeanne?"

She laughed softly.

"You are a ridiculous person," she said. "I am very fond of my
stepmother. I think that she is a very clever woman."

"Bah!" he exclaimed in disgust. "A clever woman she may be, but a good
woman, no! I am sure of that. You may judge a person by the company
they keep. Neither she or this man Forrest are fit associates for a
child of your age."

She laughed softly.

"They don't do me any harm," she said. "Mr. De la Borne and Lord Ronald
have asked me to marry them, of course, but then every young man does
that when he knows who I am. My stepmother has promised me at least
that I shall not be bothered by any of them just yet. I am going to be
presented next season, we are going to have a house in town, and I am
going to choose a husband of my own."

It was Andrew now who looked long and steadily out seawards. She
watched him covertly from under her heavily lidded eyes.

"Mr. Andrew," she said softly, "I wish very much--"

Then she stopped short, and he looked at her a little abruptly.

"What is it that you wish?" he asked.

"I wish that you did not wear such strange clothes and that you did not
talk the dialect of these fishermen, and that you had more money. Then
you too might come and see me, might you not, when we have that house
in London?"

He laughed boisterously.

"I fancy I see myself in London, paying calls," he declared. "Give me
my catboat and fishing line. I'd rather sail down the home creek, with
a northeast gale in my teeth, than walk down Piccadilly in patent
boots."

She sighed.

"I am afraid," she admitted, "that as a town acquaintance you are
hopeless."

"I am afraid so," he answered, looking steadily seawards. "We country
people have strong prejudices, you see. It seems to us that all the sin
and all the unhappiness and all the decadence and all the things that
mar the beauty of the world, come from the cities and from life in the
cities. No wonder that we want to keep away. It isn't that we think
ourselves better than the other folk. It is simply that we have
realized pleasures greater than we could find in paved streets and