happened, and they slid on into the illimitable sea, into the future of far horizons. After a while she disengaged herself a bit and, toying with the middle button of her jacket, "You love me a whole lot, don't you?" she asked in a question that was not a question. "Yes, little girl," he answered obediently. There was another long silence and the boat drifted another two hundred yards. "Oh, what a pretty dog!" she exclaimed, for her eyes had been wandering below his arms. "Is it yours?" And then he became aware of Jack beneath the thwart, whining, with eye apologetic and tail conciliatory, in the warring impulses of friendliness and reserve. She stooped down with inviting gesture, and the pup, with a little yelp, leaped into her arms. The Maestro looked down upon them, a little jealousy in his approving smile. But the interruption had suddenly made him alive to the situation. "Jehoshaphat!" he exclaimed, looking at the now distant shore, down which and away from which they were drifting at a rapid rate; "it's about time to pull in!" But this very sane remark was not immediately followed by action. The Maestro was looking blankly at the bottom of the canoe where lay what once had been a paddle, but was now only a handle without blade. The memory of the manner in which this transformation had taken place sent his eyes back over the water behind, and a frown came on his face. Right and left, with a movement regular as that of a sentinel pacing his beat, a black fin like a butcher's cleaver was cutting the water. "What's the matter, Lad?" asked the young lady, still stooping over the dog, and astonished at the silence. "Can't you find the oars?" "Well, no; fact is--these boats have no oars." "Oh," cried the bride, immediately interested by this picturesque fact, and rising to her feet; "don't they have any oars? How do you make them go?" "Paddle them, usually," answered the groom ruefully. Her eyes fell upon the lamentable remains of the lone paddle, and suddenly the air was a-thrill with a joyous laughing peal. "Oh, how jolly!" she exclaimed. "We're shipwrecked, aren't we? We'll go away out in the ocean, won't we? Isn't this a land of adventure, though!" "Well, rather," said the Maestro dryly. And, there being nothing else to do, he sat down at the bottom of the boat and drew her to his knees. She, with feminine altruism, completed the chain by taking Jack upon hers, and they drifted on upon the flashing sea. "It's just delicious," murmured the bride, feeling the warm tropical sun drying her clothes upon her. But the groom did not chime in. He was thinking.