she had lent an ear.

The picture appealed to Raymond Mortimer. With a manly stride he
approached the boat, helped her in, loosened it from its moorings, and
cast off. His brow dark with care, he loftily ordered her to steer,
and spoke no more until they had safely made their landing.

Alone on their desert island, the two children faithfully carried out
the programme of the day. With dry branches gathered by his mate the
intrepid male soon made a fire, and retreating hurriedly to a point
comfortably distant from it, they gazed upon their work. Fishing and
the cleaning and cooking of their catch filled the morning; and if,
indeed, the cleaning is something the mind would mercifully pass over,
those chiefly concerned were satisfied and ate with prodigious
appetite.

"It's awful funny," said Raymond Mortimer, comfortably, as they
reposed under a tree after their repast, "but when Lily Bell an' I
used to come here--"

He stopped and gazed apprehensively behind him, as if fearful that the
unbidden guest was even now within hearing. Apparently reassured, he
resumed: "When Lily Bell an' I used to come we 'most always went to
sleep after awhile. I--we--got kind of tired talking, I guess. But
when you an' I talk I don't get tired."

Margaret Hamilton flushed with delight, but an excess of maidenly
modesty overcame her at the same moment.

"Why don't you?" she inquired, coyly.