. To-morrow, if I feel like
it, I shall rise at dawn, and go out and look at the stars struggling with
Aurora. Whatever my personal instincts happen to be, I shall be loyal to
them. Now how do you propose to assert your individuality?"

"Unfortunately," said Mrs. Archibald, "I cannot do that exactly as I would
like to. If we had not promised my daughter and her husband that we would
stay away for a month, I should go directly home and superintend my
jelly-making and fruit-preserving; but as I cannot do that, I have
determined to act out my own self here. I shall darn stockings and sew or
read, and try to make myself comfortable and happy, just as I would if I
were sitting on my broad piazza, at home."

"Good!" said Corona. "I think it likely that you will be more true to
yourself than any of us. Doubtless you were born to be the head of a
domestic household, and if you followed your own inclination you would be
that if you were adrift with your family on a raft in the middle of the
ocean. Now I am going away to see what further suggestions my nature has
to offer me. What is Mr. Archibald doing?"

Mrs. Archibald smiled. She knew what Corona's nature would suggest if she
met a man who could talk, or rather, listen. "Oh, his nature has prompted
him to hie away to the haunts of game, and to stay there until he is half
starved."

Miss Raybold heaved a little sigh. "I see very few persons about here,"
she said--"only the two guides, in fact."

"Yes," said Mrs. Archibald, "the bishop has gone to help Mr. Clyde with
his tent."

Corona moved slowly away, and as she walked her nature suggested that she
would better eat something, so she repaired to the scene of Mrs.
Perkenpine's ordinary operations. There she found that good woman
stretched flat on her back on the ground, fast asleep. Her face and body
were shaded by some overhanging branches, but her great feet were
illumined and gilded by the blazing sun. On a camp table near by were the
remains of the breakfast. It had been there for two or three hours. Arthur
Raybold had taken what he wanted and had gone, and before composing
herself for her nap Mrs. Perkenpine had thrown over it a piece of
mosquito-netting.

Corona smiled. "Their natures are coming out beautifully," she said. "It
really does me good to see how admirably the scheme is unfolding itself."
She sat down and ate what she could find to her taste, but it was not
much. "I shall send for some fruit and some bi