y never would be unless she
minded her "p's and q's" like a good and very clever little angel with
unmeltable butter in its smiling mouth. So she shrieked, "Hang it!" and
even worse, with her whole heart, and said with her lips, in a charming
voice, "Why, of _course_! I shall be delighted to welcome any friend of
yours, and so will Basil. I _love_ surprises."

It was a short arbour, and as they all three came out of it, Mrs. West
and Somerled and the wrapped-up thing with the pancake hat--the
chauffeur following with a suit-case--Aline's eyes made the most of the
starlight, that she might read the mystery and know the worst. The worst
was very bad. Under the stars the girl looked a radiant beauty, and so
young, so young! How was the man going to account for her? Was there
still hope?

"I told you what Mrs. West would say!" exclaimed Somerled. "This is Miss
MacDonald, a daughter of Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald."

"Oh!" said Aline. "How interesting! I'm delighted to meet her." She held
out her hand, and the girl, who had not yet spoken a word, put hers into
it.

There was no real reason why "I'm delighted to meet her" wasn't
precisely the nicest thing to say in the circumstances, but somehow as a
greeting it hadn't quite the right ring, Aline herself felt. And she was
sorry, because she wanted to be entirely satisfactory to Somerled in
every way, in all situations, no matter how trying, and thus perhaps
save the ship. Why not? Many men of thirty-four were bored with girls,
and Somerled must have been bored by them already in their thousands.
Still, something that lay deep down within herself was sad and anxious.
A daughter of the beautiful and almost notorious Mrs. Ballantree
MacDonald! If he weren't in love with the girl, perhaps he had had a
desperate love affair with the mother.

"I'd no idea that Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald had any children," Aline
went on, as she shook a supple, satiny hand which wore no glove.

"She's only got me," said the girl, "and she doesn't know she's got me
yet. At least, she may have forgotten."

Somerled broke out laughing. "You'll puzzle Mrs. West," he said, with a
good-natured, amused, and proprietary air which stabbed Aline's feelings
as with little sharp pins. No, whatever else he might be, he was not
bored. "We'll have to do a lot of explaining by and by, indoors."

"Oh, yes," Barrie agreed. And then, plunging into her task, "He found me
in the railway station. I've run away from h