"Well, naturally." he had laughed. "I suppose you mean _for_ her mother." In the good-natured raillery that ensued, Bess escaped, and he always supposed the child's name was Margaret. He had never told them where he was from, beyond the fact that he was a Michigan man, until their intimacy was well established--an accidental omission, evidently, since he had told them almost everything else in his frank, boyish way. It was, therefore, with the utmost astonishment that Margaret one day heard him speak of Washington as his place of residence. "Washington!" she exclaimed, "I thought Michigan was your home." "It was formerly. But for several years I have lived in Washington." "How many years?" she asked with the air of an inquisitor. "Four--this month." Then raising his right hand, "I would further state, if it please the court, that I am a member of that large and respectable body which pours out of the departmental halls promptly at four o'clock-- "You mean you are a clerk in one of the departments?" asked Mrs. Pennybacker. Margaret was thinking, "Well, I'm glad he isn't a lawyer or a business man." "That is my humble occupation, madam. I hope I haven't led you to suppose that I am a cabinet officer or a justice of the Supreme Court in disguise." "You haven't misled me into thinking you other than you are," Mrs. Pennybacker replied composedly, "and that is a fun-loving, rollicking boy!" After this talk Margaret was most circumspect in her references to Washington. It seemed as if Mr. Harcourt would be trustworthy, "But," she told Mrs. Pennybacker that night, "I don't trust anybody." The four were sitting on the piazza of the Island House one day late in the summer, looking out over the Straits. A steamer from Chicago was rounding the buoy preparatory to making the harbor, and they were watching it. Opposite them Round Island rose from the waters like an emerald set in translucent pearl, and across the straits to the south and miles away could be discerned the outline of the mainland. A dark diagonal smoke line across the sky defined the path of the patient little ferry which kept up communication with the outer world, and the fraying out of the line at the further end into an indeterminate bank of cloud showed which way it was going. Far off to the left, where the waters of Lake Michigan merge into those of Huron, was another faint blur on the horizon. To the initiated, versed in signs and seasons, it stood for the steamer from Detroit. Carriages were driving swiftly to the docks to meet the incoming boat, for Mackinac's short season was nearing its end, and it behooved the emptying caravanseries to be making all the hay they could. The group on the piazza watched the hacks with interest, two of them laying mild wagers on the results. "I'll bet on the Island House!" said John Harcourt, "the caramels against a cigar--I to select it. Come, now!"