ring about among the
buckboards to find an eligible seat. He was not put in good humor by
finding that Mr. Meigs had ensconced himself beside Irene, and he was
about crowding in with the Ashley girls--not a bad fate--when word was
passed down the line from Mrs. Cortlandt, who was the autocrat of the
expedition, that Mr. Meigs was to come back and take a seat with Mrs.
Simpkins in the buckboard with the watermelons. She could not walk
around the "carry"; she must go by the direct road, and of course she
couldn't go alone. There was no help for it, and Mr. Meigs, looking as
cheerful as an undertaker in a healthy season, got down from his seat and
trudged back. Thus two chaperons were disposed of at a stroke, and the
young men all said that they hated to assume so much responsibility. Mr.
King didn't need prompting in this emergency; the wagons were already
moving, and before Irene knew exactly what had happened, Mr. King was
begging her pardon for the change, and seating himself beside her. And
he was thinking, "What a confoundedly clever woman Mrs. Cortlandt is!"

There is an informality about a buckboard that communicates itself at
once to conduct. The exhilaration of the long spring-board, the
necessity of holding on to something or somebody to prevent being tossed
overboard, put occupants in a larkish mood that they might never attain
in an ordinary vehicle. All this was favorable to King, and it relieved
Irene from an embarrassment she might have felt in meeting him under
ordinary circumstances. And King had the tact to treat himself and their
meeting merely as accidents.

"The American youth seem to have invented a novel way of disposing of
chaperons," he said. "To send them in one direction and the party
chaperoned in another is certainly original."

"I'm not sure the chaperons like it. And I doubt if it is proper to pack
them off by themselves, especially when one is a widow and the other is a
widower."

"It's a case of chaperon eat chaperon. I hope your friend didn't mind
it. I had nearly despaired of finding a seat."

"Mr. Meigs? He did not say he liked it, but he is the most obliging of
men."

"I suppose you have pretty well seen the island?"

"We have driven about a good deal. We have seen Southwest Harbor, and
Somes's Sound and Schooner Head, and the Ovens and Otter Cliffs--there's
no end of things to see; it needs a month. I suppose you have been up
Green Mountain?"

"No. I sent Mr. Forbes."

"Yo