curved arm above her head, and on which she leaned--as everybody leaned against something in Sidon--the two young men saw only a straying goddess in a glorified rosebud print. Whether the clearly-cut profile presented to Rice, or the full face that captivated Grant, each suggested possibilities of position, pride, poetry, and passion that astonished while it fascinated them. By one of those instincts known only to the freemasonry of the sex, Euphemia lent herself to this advertisement of her sister's charms by subtle comparison with her own prettinesses, and thus combined against their common enemy, man. “Clementina certainly is perfect, to keep her supremacy over that pretty little sister,” thought Rice. “What a fascinating little creature to hold her own against that tall, handsome girl,” thought Grant. “They're takin' stock o' them two fellers so as to gabble about 'em when their backs is turned,” said John Milton gloomily to himself, with a dismal premonition of the prolonged tea-table gossip he would be obliged to listen to later. “We were very fortunate to make a landing at all last night,” said Rice, looking down upon the still swollen current, and then raising his eyes to Clementina. “Still more fortunate to make it where we did. I suppose it must have been the singing that lured us on to the bank,--as, you know, the sirens used to lure people,--only with less disastrous consequences.” John Milton here detected three glaring errors; first, it was NOT Clementina who had sung; secondly, he knew that neither of his sisters had ever read anything about sirens, but he had; thirdly, that the young surveyor was glaringly ignorant of local phenomena and should be corrected. “It's nothin' but the current,” he said, with that feverish youthful haste that betrays a fatal experience of impending interruption. “It's always leavin' drift and rubbish from everywhere here. There ain't anythin' that's chucked into the creek above that ain't bound to fetch up on this bank. Why, there was two sheep and a dead hoss here long afore YOU thought of coming!” He did not understand why this should provoke the laughter that it did, and to prove that he had no ulterior meaning, added with pointed politeness, “So IT ISN'T YOUR FAULT, you know--YOU couldn't help it;” supplementing this with the distinct courtesy, “otherwise you wouldn't have come.” “But it would seem that your visitors are not all as accidental as your brother would imply, and one, at least, seems to have been expected last evening. You remember you thought we were a Mr. Parmlee,” said Mr. Rice looking at Clementina. It would be strange indeed, he thought, if the beautiful girl were not surrounded by admirers. But without a trace of self-consciousness, or any change in her reposeful face, she indicated her sister with a slight gesture, and said: “One of Phemie's friends. He gave her the accordion. She's very popular.”