“My dear—sister, I mean—the task will be much too laborious for you. The causeway over which all these things have to be brought is no macadamized avenue, I assure you.” “For all that, Justin, you traversed it; and you know that I must make the attempt. If I fail, I will very quietly yield the point and leave all the labor to yourself alone.” “Well, well,” said Justin, laughing. “You are ‘queen o’er yourself,’ and all things else here. You must work your own will.” “And sure, here’s meself, wid me two hands to the fore, ready to fetch and carry wid the best iv yez!” “Thank you, Judith, I had certainly counted on your help,” said Mr. Rosenthal. “And now—sister—shall we set forth?” he inquired, turning toward Britomarte. “If you please,” said Miss Conyers. Justin looked up through the trees toward the blazing sky. For though this was January, yet they were in a climate where that month answers to our July. “It is very hot and growing hotter; and I dare say you did not bring a bonnet with you when you landed on this island?” he inquired, with a droll look. “I dare say I did not,” smiled Britomarte. But Judith took up the matter in grand gravity. “Bonnet?” she echoed. “Sure mine was lost itself in a fray fight wid the say!—Bonnet? Faix, it was all I could do at all, at all, to kape the hair itself on me head, let alone bonnets!” “Then we must improvise some defense for your heads against this sun,” said Mr. Rosenthal, looking around. “Ah! I have it! the palm leaves! nothing could be better!” he exclaimed, starting off in a run through the thicket toward the grove of cocoa palms. “Ah! sure, what would we do without him, at all, at all! Troth, we hadn’t aven a dacent meal’s victuals till he come to our relaif, so we hadn’t. Sure, we’d perish intirely only for him,” said Judith, looking gratefully in the direction where Justin had disappeared. The man-hater did not reply. There was no controverting Judith’s words. Perhaps also they expressed Britomarte’s own thoughts. What, indeed, though one was brave and the other strong, could these two women have done for self-preservation, left alone on this desert island, without the help of the one man Providence had sent to their assistance? Justin soon returned, bearing large palm leaves, which, with some natural dexterity, he doubled and shaped into a rude sort of hoods, more remarkable for utility than for beauty. “There,” he said; “they are not in the latest Parisian style of ladies’ bonnets, I am afraid, but they will keep the sun off, and to do that is the purpose for which they were formed. I hope we may all answer the end of our creation as well.” When they were about to start, the little dog, seeing symptoms of a move, began jumping and frisking around them, to testify his approbation of the journey and his willingness to share it.