t went and came almost perceptibly with the breath, and the
sunbeam that slanting round suddenly suffused the whole. "Pretty boy!"
thought Mrs. Laudersdale; "beautiful picture!" and she flitted on. But
Roger Raleigh was not a boy, although sleep, that gives back to all
stray glimpses of their primal nature, endowed him peculiarly with a
look of childlike innocence unknown to his waking hours.

Startled, perhaps, by the intruding step, for it was no light one, a
squirrel leaped from the bough to the grass, and, leaping, woke the
sleeper. He himself, now unperceived, saw a vision in return,--this
woman, young and rare, this queenly, perfect thing, floating on and
vanishing among the trees. Whence had she come, and who was she? And
hereupon he remembered the old Bawn and its occupants. Had she seen him?
Unlikely; but yet, unimportant as it was, it remained an interesting and
open question in his mind. Bringing down the hair so ruffled in the idle
breeze, he crowded his hat over it with a determined air, half ran, half
tumbled, down the bank, sprang into his boat, and, shaking out a sail,
went flirting over the lake as fast as the wind could carry him. Leaving
a long, straight, shining wake behind him, Mr. Roger Raleigh skimmed
along the skin of ripples, and, in order to avoid a sound of shrill
voices, skirted the angle of an island, and found himself deceived by
the echo and in the midst of them.

Mrs. McLean, Miss Helen Heath, and Miss Mary Purcell, who had embarked
with a single pair of oars, were now shipwrecked on the waters wide, as
Helen said; for one of their means of progress, she declared, had been
snatched by the roaring waves and was floating in the trough of the sea,
just beyond their reach. None of the number being acquainted with the
process of sculling, they considered it imperative to secure the truant
tool, unless they wished to perish floating about unseen; and having
weighed the expediency of rigging Helen into a jury-mast, they were now
using their endeavors to regain the oar,--Mary Purcell whirling them
about like a maelstroem with the remaining one, and Mrs. McLean with her
two hands grasping Helen's garments, while the latter half stood in the
boat and half lay recumbent on the lake, tipping, slipping, dipping,
till her head resembled a mermaid's; while they all three filled the air
with more exclaim, shrieking, and laughter than could have been effected
by a large-lunged mob.

"Bedlam let loose,"