they looked like sham
yachtsmen; and I have seen stewardesses wearing that color and texture
of cloth--"

"But why not leave it as it is," said Ingram--"a solitary costume
produced by certain conditions of climate and duties, acting in
conjunction with a natural taste for harmonious coloring and simple
form? That dress, I will maintain, sprang as naturally from the salt sea
as Aphrodite did; and the man who suspects artifice in it, or invention,
has had his mind perverted by the skepticism of modern society."

"Is my dress so very wonderful?" said Sheila, with a grave complacence.
"I am pleased that the Lewis has produced such a fine thing, and perhaps
you would like me to tell you its history. It was my papa bought a piece
of blue serge in Stornoway: it cost three shillings sixpence a yard, and
a dressmaker in Stornoway cut it for me, and I made it myself. That is
all the history of the wonderful dress."

Suddenly Sheila seized her husband's arm. They had got down to the river
by Mortlake; and there, on the broad bosom of the stream, a long and
slender boat was shooting by, pulled by four oarsmen clad in
white flannel.

"How can they go out in such a boat?" said Sheila, with great alarm
visible in her eyes. "It is scarcely a boat at all; and if they touch a
rock, or if the wind catches them--"

"Don't be frightened, Sheila," said her husband. "They are quite safe.
There are no rocks in our rivers, and the wind does not give us squalls
here like those on Loch Roag. You will see hundreds of those boats by
and by, and perhaps you yourself will go out in one."

"Oh, never, never!" she said, almost with a shudder.

"Why, if the people here heard you they would not know how brave a
sailor you are. You are not afraid to go out at night by yourself on the
sea, and you won't go on a smooth inland river--"

"But those boats: if you touch them they must go over."

She seemed glad to get away from the river. She could not be persuaded
of the safety of the slender craft of the Thames; and indeed, for some
time after seemed so strangely depressed that Lavender begged and
prayed of her to tell him what was the matter. It was simple enough. She
had heard him speak of his boating adventures. Was it in such boats as
that she had just seen? and might he not be some day going out in one of
them and an accident--the breaking of an oar, a gust of wind--

There was nothing for it but to reassure her by a solemn promise that in
no