nthrop will find charming ones, and present them to us,
and then we shall exclaim more; we shall dote upon the ones he gives us,
we shall hoard them away carefully in our handkerchiefs and pockets; and
then, to-morrow morning, when the sun comes up, he will shine upon two
dear little heaps of them outside our bedroom windows, where, of course,
we shall have thrown them as soon as we reached home."

Mr. Moore listened to these remarks with surprise. Upon the various
occasions when he had visited Patricio he had always, and with great
interest, picked up shells for the ladies present, knowing how much they
would value them. He now meditated a little upon the back windows
alluded to by Garda; it was a new idea.

"Oh, how _delightful_ it is to go marooning!" said Mrs. Carew, who,
beginning to recover from the terrors of the voyage, had found her voice
again. Her feet were still somewhat cramped from their use as brakes;
she furtively extended them for a moment, and then, unable to resist the
comfort of the position, left them extended. Her boots were the
old-fashioned thin-soled all-cloth gaiters without heels, laced at the
side, dear to the comfort-loving ladies of that day; her ankles came
down into their loose interiors without any diminishing curves, as in
the case of the elephant.

"Are you going, Margaret?" said Mrs. Rutherford, in her amiably
patronizing voice. "Don't you think you will find it rather warm?" Mrs.
Rutherford inhabited the serene country of non-effort, she could
therefore maintain without trouble the satisfactory position of
criticising the actions of others; for whether they succeeded or whether
they failed, success or failure equally indicated an attempt, and
anything like attempt she was above. "People who _try_" was one of her
phrases; she would not have cared to discover America, for undoubtedly
Columbus had tried.

"I like this Florida warmth," Margaret had answered. "It's not heat;
it's only softness."

"It's lax, I think," suggested Mrs. Rutherford, still amiably.

No one disputed this point. It was lax.

"Doesn't he look like a tree?" murmured Garda to Margaret, indicating by
a glance the Rev. Mr. Moore, as he stood at a little distance, gazing
at the sea--"a tall slim one, you know, that hasn't many leaves; his
arms are like the branches, and his fingers like the twigs; and his
voice is so innocent and--and vegetable."

Margaret shook her head.

"You don't like it?" said the girl;