a festive supper-table, and Bill, her spouse, stood by with a
Government launch to take the proud young husband to his wife, and to
bring them back together.

Lily awaited him, trembling, tearful, wild with the joy of going home.
Her step-mother had come to Sandridge to see her off, and had brought
her a present of a macintosh, on the merits of which she dilated with
fervour as she twirled it round and round.

"Buttons right down to the feet," she urged persuasively, "and cape
hanging below the waist"--the second Mrs Harrison was a big woman. "You
might go through a deluge in it. And so stylish, my dear! You can wear
it when you go out in threatening weather of an afternoon, and be quite
smart."

"Well, it's pretty threatening now," said Guthrie uneasily. "I don't
know that it wouldn't be wiser--"

"Oh, no, no!" Lily implored. "No trains tonight! No way but this,
Guthrie. I can't get wet--in this nice waterproof. I don't care how it
blows--the more the better--with you with me."

"But baby?"

"We can keep him safe. He is going to be rolled in your 'possum rug. We
can take him inside if it is cold. Oh, we MUST go by sea, Guthrie!"

"Call this sea?" he mocked.

It was sea to her, who had never been beyond the Heads. She expected to
concentrate in the fifteen-minutes' trip across the bay the interest of
years of travel on land. There was nothing like blue water to this
sailor's wife, whose heart had been upon it for so many anxious months;
the extravagance of her partiality was the joke of husband and friends
against her.

"All right," said Guthrie; "come along, then!"

He was impatient to get her away from these people, and under his own
roof.

The second-hand macintosh was again pressed upon her.

"Oh, thanks--thanks! But I think I won't put it on just yet, as it is
not raining. My dress is warm."

Her dress was the wedding dress--chosen for use as well as beauty--a
delicate pink stuff, with a watered sash to match, in which she looked
like a school-girl on breaking-up day. She had a fancy to go to her
home in state, and also to make an appearance that would do her husband
credit before Mr and Mrs Hardacre.

"Here is your fascinator, my dear," said the motherly landlady,
offering the wisely-selected substitute for Lily's hat. "Let me tie it
on for you--there!"

The fascinator of white wool, made and adjusted properly, accounts for
its name; and Guthrie was sure that he had never seen a lovelier
pictu