cio a number of miles below Gracias,
where there was a path which led across to the ocean beach. This path
was narrow, and the gallant Dr. Kirby walked in the bushes all the way,
suffering the twigs to flagellate his plump person, in order to hold a
white umbrella over Mrs. Rutherford, who, arm in arm with her Betty,
took up the entire track. Patricio, which had first been a reef, and
then an outlying island, was now a long peninsula, joining the main land
some forty miles below Gracias in an isthmus of sand; it came northward
in a waving line, slender and green, lying like a ribbon in the water,
the Espiritu on one side, the ocean on the other. When the ocean beach
of the ribbon was reached, Mrs. Rutherford admired the view; she admired
it so much that she thought she would sit down and admire it more. Dr.
Kirby therefore bestirred himself in arranging the cushions and rugs
which Winthrop's men had brought across from the yacht, to form an
out-of-door sofa for the ladies; for Betty, of course, decided to remain
with Katrina. The Doctor said that he should himself bear them company,
leaving the "younger men" to "fume and fluster and explore."

The Rev. Mr. Moore was, in actual years, not far from Dr. Reginald's own
age. But the Rev. Mr. Moore was perennially young; slender and light,
juvenile in figure, especially when seen from behind, his appearance was
not that of an elderly man so much as of a young man in whom the
progress of age has been in some way arrested, like the young peaches,
withered and wrinkled and yet with the bloom of youth about them still,
which have dropped to the ground before their prime. He now stood
waiting on the beach, armed with his butterfly net; as his butterfly net
was attached to a long green pole, one end of which rested on the
ground, he had the air of a sort of marine shepherd with a crook.

The Rev. Mr. Moore always carried this entomological apparatus with him
when he went upon pleasure excursions; his wife encouraged him in the
amusement, she said it was a distraction for his mind; the butterflies
also found it a distraction, they were in the habit of laughing (so some
persons declared) all down the coast whenever the parson and his net
appeared in sight.

"You are going to explore, aren't you?" said Garda to Margaret Harold;
"it's lovely, and we shall not fume or fluster in the least, in spite of
the Doctor; we shall only pick up shells. Over these shells we shall
exclaim; Mr. Wi