"I told you. Our governess. She's a perfect ripper. She's the third governess we've had. But the other two weren't quite----" Cornelius James hesitated. "Well's matter of fact, I don't think they were quite the right sort. They didn't understand how to play, they hadn't any 'magination, and they were always afraid of cows and getting sunburnt and taking off their shoes and stockings when it came to anything wet. Miss Mayne's quite different--because--well, because she's what she is, I suppose. It makes all the difference, doesn't it?" Graeme Jakes considered the subtlety in silence. "I don't know," he said finally. He turned his head and looked at the small snob nursing his bare knees. Again their eyes met in friendly searching scrutiny. "I've hardly ever met any ladies," he said. It was as if he had taken the boy as an equal into a rather pathetic confidence. Cornelius James surveyed his new friend with a deliberate interest. It absorbed the frayed deerstalker speckled with trout-flies, the flannel shirt open at the throat, the baggy tweed coat of many pockets, the corduroy breeches and muddy boots and gaiters. To the wearer of these garments he applied in turn all the standards of his brief experience of life. "Don't they like you?" he asked. "Dunno," was the reply. "Never asked 'em." He looked musingly across the rolling moor. "One did once--but she died when I was little." The splashing of water down-stream interrupted the speaker. "Here's Jane," said Cornelius James, looking over his shoulder. "She's all right," he added, quickly, as the other made a hasty movement that suggested fright. "She's really quite sensible for a girl." Jane drew near, swinging her broad-brimmed hat in her hand and stepping from stone to stone with the lithe grace of a youthful dryad. She had discarded her petticoat and wore only a jersey and knickers. "Jane," shouted Cornelius James, as she approached. "He's in the Navy, but he doesn't know Daddy." He made a gesture of proprietorship in the direction of the impassive figure seated in the heather. Jane waded ashore and extended her hand with friendly unconsciousness of self. "How d'you do?" she said, and devoured him with round grey eyes. "Did you ever know Mr. Standish?" she inquired. Her brother's protégé nodded smiling. "Bunje?" he said. "Yes, rather--I was shipmates along of Jim." He lapsed jestingly into the vernacular of the lower deck. "Jane loves him," interposed Cornelius James. "She was going to marry him only he got married to someone else. She was awfully sick--weren't you, Jane?" "Shut up," was the graceful retort of the woman scorned. "And did you know Torps--Mr. Mainwaring? He was killed," she added gravely. "No, never shipmates with him. Heard about him, though. White man by all accounts." "He was a darling," said Jane, simply. "It's dreadful to think of him dead. But I don't think frightfully nice people _really_ die, do you?"