“That will be delightful, James,” Mrs. Grantham said, when the invitation was repeated to her. “I should like it of all things; and I am sure the rest and quiet and the sea air will be just the thing for you. It is wonderful, Tom Virtue making the offer; and I take it as a great personal compliment, for he certainly is not what is generally called a lady's man. It is very nice, too, of him to think of my having another lady on board. Whom shall we ask? Oh, I know,” she said suddenly; “that will be the thing of all others. We will ask my cousin Minnie; she is full of fun and life, and will make a charming wife for Tom!” James Grantham laughed. “What schemers you all are, Fanny! Now I should call it downright treachery to take anyone on board the Seabird with the idea of capturing its master.” “Nonsense, treachery!” Mrs. Grantham said indignantly; “Minnie is the nicest girl I know, and it would do Tom a world of good to have a wife to look after him. Why, he is thirty now, and will be settling down into a confirmed old bachelor before long. It's the greatest kindness we could do him, to take Minnie on board; and I am sure he is the sort of man any girl might fall in love with when she gets to know him. The fact is, he's shy! He never had any sisters, and spends all his time in winter at that horrid club; so that really he has never had any women's society, and even with us he will never come unless he knows we are alone. I call it a great pity, for I don't know a pleasanter fellow than he is. I think it will be doing him a real service in asking Minnie; so that's settled. I will sit down and write him a note.” “In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose,” was Tom Virtue's comment when he received Mrs. Grantham's letter, thanking him warmly for the invitation, and saying that she would bring her cousin, Miss Graham, with her, if that young lady was disengaged. As a matter of self defense he at once invited Jack Harvey, who was a mutual friend of himself and Grantham, to be of the party. “Jack can help Grantham to amuse the women,” he said to himself; “that will be more in his line than mine. I will run down to Cowes tomorrow and have a chat with Johnson; we shall want a different sort of stores altogether from those we generally carry, and I suppose we must do her up a bit below.” Having made up his mind to the infliction of female passengers, Tom Virtue did it handsomely, and when the party came on board at Ryde they were delighted with the aspect of the yacht below. She had been repainted, the saloon and ladies' cabin were decorated in delicate shades of gray, picked out with gold; and the upholsterer, into whose hands the owner of the Seabird had placed her, had done his work with taste and judgment, and the ladies' cabin resembled a little boudoir. “Why, Tom, I should have hardly known her!” Grantham, who had often spent a day on board the Seabird, said.