th the idea of
capturing its master."

"Nonsense, treachery!" Mrs. Grantham said indignantly; "Minnie is the
nicest girl I know, and it would do Tom a world of good to have a wife
to look after him. Why, he is thirty now, and will be settling down
into a confirmed old bachelor before long. It's the greatest kindness we
could do him, to take Minnie on board; and I am sure he is the sort of
man any girl might fall in love with when she gets to know him. The fact
is, he's shy! He never had any sisters, and spends all his time in
winter at that horrid club; so that really he has never had any women's
society, and even with us he will never come unless he knows we are
alone. I call it a great pity, for I don't know a pleasanter fellow than
he is. I think it will be doing him a real service in asking Minnie; so
that's settled. I will sit down and write him a note."

"In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose," was Tom Virtue's comment
when he received Mrs. Grantham's letter, thanking him warmly for the
invitation, and saying that she would bring her cousin, Miss Graham,
with her, if that young lady was disengaged.

As a matter of self-defence he at once invited Jack Harvey, who was a
mutual friend of himself and Grantham, to be of the party.

"Jack can help Grantham to amuse the women," he said to himself; "that
will be more in his line than mine. I will run down to Cowes to-morrow
and have a chat with Johnson; we shall want a different sort of stores
altogether to those we generally carry, and I suppose we must do her up
a bit below."

Having made up his mind to the infliction of female passengers, Tom
Virtue did it handsomely, and when the party came on board at Ryde they
were delighted with the aspect of the yacht below. She had been
repainted, the saloon and ladies' cabin were decorated in delicate
shades of gray, picked out with gold; and the upholsterer, into whose
hands the owner of the _Seabird_ had placed her, had done his work with
taste and judgment, and the ladies' cabin resembled a little boudoir.

"Why, Tom, I should have hardly known her!" Grantham, who had often
spent a day on board the _Seabird_, said.

"I hardly know her myself," Tom said, rather ruefully; "but I hope she's
all right, Mrs. Grantham, and that you and Miss Graham will find
everything you want."

"It is charming!" Mrs. Grantham said enthusiastically. "It's awfully
good of you, Tom, and we appreciate it; don't we, Minnie? It is such a