es--yes, 'tis." The arm holding the coat about the lady's shoulder
tightened just a little. The Captain had often dreamed of something like
this, but never with quite these surroundings. However, he was rapidly
becoming oblivious to such trivial details as surroundings.

"Pashy," he said huskily, "I've been thinkin' of you consider'ble
lately. Fact is, I--I--well, I come down to-day a-purpose to ask you
somethin'. I know it's a queer place to ask it, and--and I s'pose it's
kind of sudden, but--will--will you--Breakers! by mighty!"

The carryall had suddenly begun to rock, and there were streaks of foam
about it. Now, it gave a most alarming heave, grounded, swung clear, and
tipped yet more.

"We're capsizin'," yelled Perez. "Hang on to me, Pashy!"

But Miss Patience didn't intend to let this, perhaps the final
opportunity, slip. As she told her brother afterward, she would have
made him say it then if they had been "two fathom under water."

"Will I what, Perez?" she demanded.

The carryall rose on two wheels and begun to turn over, but the Captain
did not notice it. The arms of his heart's desire were about his neck,
and he was looking into her eyes.

"Will you marry me?" he gasped.

"Yes," answered Miss Patience, and they went under together.

The Captain staggered to his feet, and dragged his chosen bride to hers.
The ice-cold water reached their shoulders. And, like a flash, as they
stood there, came a torrent of rain and a wind that drove the fog before
it like smoke. Captain Perez saw the shore, with its silhouetted bushes,
only a few yards away. Beyond that, in the blackness, was a light, a
flickering blaze, that rose and fell and rose and fell again.

The Captain dragged Miss Patience to the beach.

"Run!" he chattered, "run, or we'll turn into icicles. Come on!"

With his arm about her waist Perez guided his dripping companion, as
fast as they could run, toward the light. And as they came nearer to it
they saw that it flickered about the blackened ruins of a hen-house and
a lath fence.

It was Mrs. Mayo's henhouse, and Mrs. Mayo's fence. Their adventurous
journey had ended where it began.

"You see, Eri," said Captain Perez, as he told his friend the story that
night, "that clock in the dining room that I looked at hadn't been goin'
for a week; the mainspring was broke. 'Twa'n't seven o'clock, 'twas
nearer nine when the fire started, and the tide wa'n't goin' out, 'twas
comin' in. I drove into t