"It might easily be that! No, thank you, I'm off. Some other day--" "But we want you, Dan! _I_ want you to come." "But _I_ don't, you see. There's the difference. Sorry to disoblige." Darsie regarded him silently, considered the point whether wrath or pathos would be the most powerful weapon, decided rapidly in favour of pathos, and sank with a sigh on to an opposite chair. "Very well. I _quite_ understand. We wanted you especially because this may be the last, the very last time that one of us girls has any fun this summer, so of course it feels important. But you are so much older--it's natural that you shouldn't care. I think you've been very nice to be as much with us as you have been... Dan!" "Yes!" "Hannah says it will be _me_! That Aunt Maria is sure to choose me when she comes. Do you think she will?" "Ten to one, I should say." "Oh, but why? _Why_? How can you be so sure?" Dan's dark eyes surveyed the alert little head, poised on the stem of the graceful throat, his thin lips lengthened in the long, straight line which showed that he was trying not to smile. "Because--er, you appear to me the sort of girl that an erratic old fossil would naturally prefer!" "Ah-h!"--Darsie's dejection was deep--"Daniel, how cruel!" It was a comforting retaliation to address her tormentor by the name he so cordially disliked, but she remembered her role, and looked dejected rather than irate. "I suppose that's true. I _need_ discipline, and she would naturally choose the worst of the three. No one wants to be disciplined instead of having a good time, but it may be good for me in the end. All the time you are at sea, happy and free, I shall be being disciplined for my good... Wednesday may be my last, my very last, glad day..." "Bah! Rubbish!" snapped Dan, but he looked at the curly head, and felt a pang of distaste. The idea of Darsie Garnett sobered and disciplined out of recognition was distinctly unpleasant. He wriggled in his chair, and said tentatively: "It will take more than one old lady to tame _you_, young woman! You'll have lots of fun yet--perhaps more than if you'd stayed at home." Darsie smiled with angelic resignation. "Perhaps so, but it won't be the same _kind_ of fun. New friends can never be like old. If she chooses me, I must go, because of my duty to father and the rest, but it's going to _hurt_! I feel,"--she waved her arms dramatically in the air--"like a flower that is being torn out by the roots! I shall not live long in a strange soil... Well, goodbye, Dan; I won't bother you any more! Thank you very much for all you've done for me in the past." Done! Dan searched his memory, found therein inscribed a number of snubs, rebuffs, and teasings, but nothing worthy of the thanks so sweetly offered.