pilot jacket looked beside this perfectly fitted and delicately
gowned girl! He loathed his collar, his jersey, his turned-back
sou'wester, even his height, which seemed to hulk beside her--
everything, in short, that the girl had recently admired. By the
time that they had reached Major Bromley's door he had so far
succumbed to the fair enchantress and realized her ambition of a
triumphant procession, that when she ushered him into the presence
of half a dozen ladies and gentlemen he scarcely recognized his
sister as the centre of attraction, or knew that Miss Cicely's
effusive greeting of Maggie was her first one. "I knew he was
dying to see you after all you had BOTH passed through, and I
brought him straight here," said the diminutive Machiavelli,
meeting the astonished gaze of her father and the curious eyes of
her sister with perfect calmness, while Maggie, full of gratitude
and admiration of her handsome brother, forgot his momentary
obliviousness, and returned her greeting warmly. Nevertheless,
there was a slight movement of reserve among the gentlemen at the
unlooked-for irruption of this sunburnt Adonis, until Calvert,
disengaging himself from Maggie's side, came forward with his usual
frank imperturbability and quiet tact, and claimed Jim as his
friend and honored guest.

It then came out with that unostentatious simplicity which
characterized the brother and sister, and was their secure claim to
perfect equality with their entertainers, that Jim, on discovering
his sister's absence, and fearing that she might be carried by the
current towards the bar, had actually SWUM THE ESTUARY to Indian
Island, and in an ordinary Indian canoe had braved the same
tempestuous passage she had taken a few hours before. Cicely,
listening to this recital with rapt attention, nevertheless managed