brought a new exercise into his lazy life. Every day now at noon
he had to climb the hill, on the look-out for whalemen. Whalemen
haunted his dreams, though I doubt if he would willingly have
gone on board even a Royal Mail steamer. He was quite happy
where he was. After long years of the fo'cs'le the island was a
change indeed. He had tobacco enough to last him for an indefinite
time, the children for companions, and food at his elbow. He
would have been entirely happy if the island had only been
supplied by Nature with a public-house.

The spirit of hilarity and good fellowship, however, who suddenly
discovered this error on the part of Nature, rectified it, as will
be presently seen.

The most disastrous result of the whaleman's visit was not the
destruction of the "house," but the disappearance of Emmeline's
box. Hunt high or hunt low, it could not be found. Mr Button in his
hurry must have forgotten it when he removed the things to the
dinghy--at all events, it was gone. Probably one of the crew of
the whalemen had found it and carried it off with him; no one
could say. It was gone, and there was the end of the matter, and
the beginning of great tribulation, that lasted Emmeline for a
week.

She was intensely fond of coloured things, coloured flowers
especially; and she had the prettiest way of making them into a
wreath for her own or someone else's head. It was the hat-making
instinct that was at work in her, perhaps; at all events, it was a
feminine instinct, for Dick made no wreaths.