d together against a rock, and they are
farther from home, in every sense of the word, than ever before.
Thirty-six hours ago, they were given three minutes in which to dress,
without a maid, and reach the boats, and they have not made the best
of that valuable time. None of them has boots, and had they known this
prickly island they would have thought first of boots. They have a
sufficiency of garments, but some of them were gifts dropped into the
boat--Lady Mary's tarpaulin coat and hat, for instance, and Catherine's
blue jersey and red cap, which certify that the two ladies were lately
before the mast. Agatha is too gay in Ernest's dressing-gown, and
clutches it to her person with both hands as if afraid that it may be
claimed by its rightful owner. There are two pairs of bath slippers
between the three of them, and their hair cries aloud and in vain for
hairpins.

By their side, on an inverted bucket, sits Ernest, clothed neatly in
the garments of day and night, but, alas, bare-footed. He is the only
cheerful member of this company of four, but his brightness is due less
to a manly desire to succour the helpless than to his having been lately
in the throes of composition, and to his modest satisfaction with the
result. He reads to the ladies, and they listen, each with one scared
eye to the things that fall from trees.

ERNEST (who has written on the fly-leaf of the only book saved from the
wreck). This is what I have written. 'Wrecked, wrecked, wrecked! on an
island in the Tropics, the following: the Hon. Ernest Woolley, the Rev.
John Treherne, the Ladies Mary, Catherine, and Agatha Lasenby, with two
servants. We are the sole survivors of Lord Loam's steam yacht Bluebell,
which encountered a fearful gale in these seas, and soon became a total
wreck. The crew behaved gallantly, putting us all into the first boat.
What became of them I cannot tell, but we, after dreadful sufferings,
and insufficiently clad, in whatever garments we could lay hold of in
the dark'--

LADY MARY. Please don't describe our garments.

ERNEST.--'succeeded in reaching this island, with the loss of only one
of our party, namely, Lord Loam, who flung away his life in a gallant
attempt to save a servant who had fallen overboard.' (The ladies have
wept long and sore for their father, but there is something in this last
utterance that makes them look up.)

AGATHA. But, Ernest, it was Crichton who jumped overboard trying to save
father.

ER