I

"Oh, I'm going to be Lady Jane Grey," said Charlie Cleveland, balancing
himself on the deck-rail in front of his friends, Mrs. Langdale and
Mollie Erle, with considerable agility. "And, Mollie, I say, will you
lend me a black silk skirt? I saw you were wearing one last night."

He spoke with complete seriousness. It was this boy's way to infuse into
all his actions an enthusiasm that deprived the most trifling of the
commonplace element. He was the gayest passenger on board--the very life
of the boat. Yet he had few accomplishments to recommend him, his
abundant spirits alone attaining for him the popularity he everywhere
enjoyed.

Molly Erle, who with Mrs. Langdale was returning home after spending the
winter with some friends at Calcutta, regarded him with a toleration not
wholly devoid of contempt. He apparently deemed it necessary to pay her
a good deal of attention, and Molly was strongly determined to keep him
at a distance--a matter, by the way, that had its difficulties in face
of young Cleveland's romping lack of ceremony.

"Yes, you may have the skirt," she said with a generosity not wholly
spontaneous, as he waited expectantly for a reply to his request.

"Ah, good!" he said effusively. "That is a great weight off my mind. And
may I have Number Ten on your programme?"

"Are you going to dance?" asked Mrs. Langdale, with a half-suppressed
laugh.