, rowed out toward the islets.

"Now, Kathy, you must let me pull," said Nigel, pushing out the sculls,
"for although the captain tells me you are very good at rowing, it would
never do for a man, you know, to sit lazily down and let himself be
rowed by a girl."

"Very well," said Kathy, with a quiet and most contented smile, for she
had not yet reached the self-conscious age--at least, as ages go in the
Cocos-Keeling Islands! Besides, Kathy was gifted with that charming
disposition which never _objects_ to anything--anything, of course, that
does not involve principle!

But it was soon found that, as the cockleshell had no rudder, and the
intricacies they had to wind among were numerous, frequent directions
and corrections were called for from the girl.

"D'you know," said Nigel at last, "as I don't know where you want me to
go to, it may be as well, after all, that you should row!"

"Very well," said Kathy, with another of her innocent smiles. "I
thinked it will be better so at first."

Nigel could not help laughing at the way she said this as he handed her
the sculls.

She soon proved herself to be a splendid boat-woman, and although her
delicate and shapely arms were as mere pipe-stems to the great brawny
limbs of her companion, yet she had a deft, mysterious way of handling
the sculls that sent the cockleshell faster over the lagoon than before.

"Now, we go ashore here," said Kathy, turning the boat,--with a prompt
backwater of the left scull, and a vigorous pull of the right one,--into
a little cove just big enough to hold it.

The keel went with such a plump on the sand, that Nigel, who sat on a
forward thwart with his back landward, reversed the natural order of
things by putting his back on the bottom of the boat and his heels in
the air.

To this day it is an unsettled question whether this was done on purpose
by Kathy. Certain it is that _she_ did not tumble, but burst into a
hearty fit of laughter, while her large lustrous eyes half shut
themselves up and twinkled.

"Why, you don't even apologise, you dreadful creature!" exclaimed Nigel,
joining in the laugh, as he picked himself up.

"Why should I 'pologise?" asked the girl, in the somewhat broken English
acquired from her adopted family. "Why you not look out?"

"Right, Kathy, right; I'll keep a sharp lookout next time. Meanwhile I
will return good for evil by offering my hand to help you a--hallo!"

While he spoke the girl had sprun