Jean put her hand in his with a demure uplifting of her eyebrows, and just a fleeting smile on her lips. There flashed through her mind the thought: "How unmercifully Nan would chaff me, if she could catch a glimpse of me now." The descent was a brief one, and soon they had crossed the sands and were strolling along the road in the direction of the manor. "You are coming to dine with us to-morrow night, are you not, Mr. Farr?" "Your sister was good enough to ask us, and I shall be only too delighted to avail myself of her kind invitation." "I really will not let you come any further with me," she declared as they reached the manor gates. "I fear, as it is, I have taken you very much out of your way, and it must be late." "It is close upon seven," he told her after looking at his watch. "And you dine?" "At seven, and let me warn you now that to be late is to meet with my sister's ire." "I shall remember," he answered, with his pleasant laugh. "And now can I not see you to your door?" "No, indeed. I must hurry away," she said as they shook hands, "for time, tide, and dinner at the manor wait for no man. Good-by." "Until to-morrow," he said, as he turned away. CHAPTER VI. A DINNER AT THE MANOR. It was the evening of the dinner given in honor of the naval officers, and even as the old Dutch clock in the corner of the manor hall struck the hour of seven, Farr was shaking hands with Mrs. Dennis. "I am so sorry," she said to him with a sweet smile, "that I shall be obliged to absent myself from the dinner table to-night, but my strength is not very great and I dare not overtax it. My niece Helen," with a proud accent, which was not lost upon Farr, "has taken my place for so long that I feel no hesitation in leaving everything in her hands." "Oh, Auntie," cried Helen, with shy deprecation, "Mr. Farr will begin to think me that most tiresome of all things, a paragon of household virtue." Farr made a gesture of dissent, and then as Clifford Archer presented himself, he turned and followed Helen with admiring eyes. Very fair and womanly she seemed to him, in her gown of pale lavender crepe, moving about among her guests, greeting one and all with gentle courtesy. His gaze wandered on to where, in a further corner of the drawing-room, Nathalie was keeping up a merry chatter with Wendell Churchill. In spite of her eighteen years, she looked a very child to-night, in her white mulle gown, with a broad white sash around her waist, and one red rose in her brown hair. A spoiled child, too, she undeniably was; unused to restraint, somewhat willful and quick-tempered, but with a heart so true and generous that one could always trust this small maiden and know that the good would predominate.