ittle cutter was ever found wanting.
And when, for any reason, his presence was in demand, the first place to
look for him was--in the boat, and there, too, he was usually found,
tinkering away with sheets, sails, or rudder and singing as he tinkered.

'Nor was the "reading" neglected; for most mornings there came a sound
of droning voices form the white tent by the raspberry bushes, which
signified that Sangree, the tutor, and whatever other man chanced to be
in the party at the time, were hard at it with history or the classics.

And while Mrs. Maloney, also by natural selection, took charge of the
larder and the kitchen, the mending and general supervision of the rough
comforts, she also made herself peculiarly mistress of the megaphone
which summoned to meals and carried her voice easily from one end of the
island to the other; and in her hours of leisure she daubed the
surrounding scenery on to a sketching block with all the honesty and
devotion of her determined but unreceptive soul.

Joan, meanwhile, Joan, elusive creature of the wilds, became I know not
exactly what. She did plenty of work in the Camp, yet seemed to have no
very precise duties. She was everywhere and anywhere. Sometimes she
slept in her tent, sometimes under the stars with a blanket. She knew
every inch of the island and kept turning up in places where she was
least expected--for ever wandering about, reading her books in sheltered
corners, making little fires on sunless days to "worship by to the
gods," as she put it, ever finding new pools to dive and bathe in, and
swimming day and night in the warm and waveless lagoon like a fish in a
huge tank. She went bare-legged and bare-footed, with her hair down and
her skirts caught up to the knees, and if ever a human being turned into
a jolly savage within the compass of a single week, Joan Maloney was
certainly that human being. She ran wild.

So completely, too, was she possessed by the strong spirit of the place
that the little human fear she had yielded to so strangely on our
arrival seemed to have been utterly dispossessed. As I hoped and
expected, she made no reference to our conversation of the first
evening. Sangree bothered her with no special attentions, and after all
they were very little together. His behaviour was perfect in that
respect, and I, for my part, hardly gave the matter another thought.
Joan was ever a prey to vivid fancies of one kind or another, and this
was one of them.