ady Greendale would
even dream for a moment of setting her cap at a Colonel on half
pay, but if a woman is in the marrying line she always expects a
certain amount of what you may call delicate attention. It is her
daily bread, for she considers that unless every man she comes
across evinces a certain amount of admiration, it is a sign that
her charms are on the wane, and her chances growing more and more
remote."

Mallett laughed. "You can set your mind at ease, for nothing is
further from the thoughts of Lady Greendale than re-marriage. She
was very happy with her husband."

"The more reason for her marrying again," the Colonel said. "A
woman who has been happy with her husband is apt to get the idea
into her head that every man will make a good husband; and a
confoundedly mistaken idea it is. She is much more likely to marry
again than the woman who has had a hard time of it."

"Well, you may be right there, Colonel, but putting aside my
conviction that Lady Greendale has no idea of marrying again, is
the fact that at present all her thoughts are occupied by her
daughter. She is not at all what you would call a managing mother,
but I am sure that she has set her heart on Bertha's making a good
match, and that the fear that she will succumb to some penniless
younger son or other unsuitable partner is at present the dominant
feeling in her mind. I don't think she would have agreed to Jack
Hawley being of the party, had not Bertha entertained a conviction
that he was rather gone on Miss Sinclair, who by the way has, like
her sister, money enough to disregard the fact that Jack is hardly
in that respect well endowed.

"However, it is time for me to be off; I see the skipper is getting
the gig lowered. I suppose you will be content to sit here and
smoke your pipe until we come back; and, indeed, seven is as many
as the gig will carry with any degree of comfort. The cutter will
go ashore to fetch off the luggage, which will probably be of
somewhat portentous dimensions."

Two minutes later Mallett took his place in the gig, and was rowed
to the shore. He was delighted, with his new purchase. She was an
excellent sea boat, and, as he had learned from a short spin with
another craft, decidedly fast. He had not, however, entered her for
any race.

"There is no hurry," he said to his skipper, when the latter
suggested that they should try her at Cowes. "I should like to win
my first race, and in the first place we do