romise was looming in the distance, and presently they were
rowing slowly round and round looking for a convenient place of landing,
tying the rope to the trunk of a willow whose branches dipped in the
stream, and stepping cautiously ashore.

The children were wild with excitement, but the Captain claimed for
himself a quarter of an hour's rest and smoke before proceeding to the
difficult business of boiling the kettle; and the two little girls
scampered off to explore the island, promising faithfully to keep clear
of the banks.

"Mamzelle shall stay and talk to me! It's my turn to be amused," he
said; but for once Pixie did not seem in a talkative mood, but leant
silently against the stump of a tree, staring around her with dreamy
eyes.

The young fellow watched her curiously as he pulled his pipe out of his
pocket and prepared for the longed-for smoke. "What are you thinking
of, Mamzelle?" he asked; and Pixie looked round with a little start of
remembrance.

"I don't know. Everything. Nothing in particular, only that it's so
warm and sunny and pretty; and you are so kind. I wasn't thinking
anything, only being happy."

"`_Only_ being happy,' were you?" he repeated softly. "Does it seem so
easy, little Mamzelle? Some of the richest men in the world would give
all their money if you could teach them that little secret. `Only being
happy' is a very difficult thing to some of us as we grow older in this
world."

Pixie looked at him with an anxious scrutiny.

"But you were happy once, weren't you," she asked, "before you were
miserable? People have been kind to you too, and made you happy before
you began to be worried?"

"I worried! I miserable! Mamzelle, what can you mean? I am out for a
picnic, with three charming ladies for my guests. How can I be anything
but proud and delighted?"

He spoke with affected hilarity; but Pixie was not so easily convinced,
and shook her head incredulously as she replied--

"No--you are not happy, really--not through and through! Ye sigh in the
middle of laughing, and think of something else when you pretend to
listen. I've been in trouble meself. Once there was an awful time when
the girls sent me to Coventry for weeks on end, and there was a horrid
dull pain inside me, as if I'd swallowed up a lump of lead. Was someone
unkind to you too?"

He laughed--a short, mirthless laugh--and pushed his hair from his brow.
It was a strange thing that he should dream o