id not, but then drowning isn't pleasant. I have been near
it very lately, and I thought a great deal about those conger-eels.
And sudden death isn't pleasant, and perhaps--unless you are very,
very good, as I daresay you are--what comes after it may not be quite
pleasant. All of which has to be thought of before one goes to sea in
an open boat in winter, on the remotest chance of saving a stranger's
life--hasn't it?"

Somehow Mr. Layard felt distinctly smaller.

"I daresay one wouldn't mind it at a pinch," he muttered; "Monk isn't
the only plucky fellow in the world."

"I am sure you would not, Mr. Layard," replied Stella in a gentler
voice, "still these things must be considered upon such occasions and a
good many others."

"A brave man doesn't think, he acts," persisted Mr. Layard.

"No," replied Stella, "a foolish man doesn't think, a brave man thinks
and sees, and still acts--at least, that is how it strikes me, although
perhaps I have no right to an opinion. But Mr. Monk is going on, so I
must say good-morning."

"Are many of the ladies about here so inquisitive, and the young
gentlemen so?"--"decided" she was going to say, but changed the word to
"kind"--asked Stella of Morris as they walked homeward.

"Ladies!" snapped Morris. "Miss Layard isn't a lady, and never will be;
she has neither birth nor breeding, only good looks of a sort and money.
I should like," he added, viciously--"I should like to shut her into her
own coal mine."

Stella laughed, which was a rare thing with her--usually she only
smiled--as she answered:

"I had no idea you were so vindictive, Mr. Monk. And what would you like
to do with Mr. Layard?"

"Oh! I--never thought much about him. He is an ignorant, uneducated
little fellow, but worth two of his sister, all the same. After all,
he's got a heart. I have known him do kind things, but she has nothing
but a temper."

Meanwhile, at the luncheon table of the Stop-gap the new and mysterious
arrival, Miss Fregelius, was the subject of fierce debate.

"Pretty! I don't call her pretty," said Miss Layard; "she has fine eyes,
that is all, and they do not look quite right. What an extraordinary
garment she had on, too; it might have come out of Noah's Ark."

"I fancy," suggested the hostess, a mild little woman, "that it came out
of the wardrobe of the late Mrs. Monk. You know, Miss Fregelius lost all
her things in that ship."

"Then if I were she I should have stopped at home until