"Indeed I have. What did you imagine I thought of in that dreadful hotel with mamma and the maid and the nurse and the peat and the water? I had to think of something. And I wondered if I should ever sail in the _Vireo_. And now I mean to sail in her the very first minute I can manage it. I got me the loveliest sailor hat in Paris, and a ribbon with 'Vireo' on it, and a yachting suit that looks as if it were made in Paradise. Yes, I sail the _Vireo_ the salt seas over." "I didn't know you went to Paris." "I did. I wanted some clothing fit for mamma's daughter and your cousin to wear. And I've got it. You just wait and see. That's why I was a little late in coming across. Oh, how divine that color is beyond Long Ledge! Life is worth the living, isn't it, Caro dear? Yes, it is certainly a blessed thing to be alive. This world is a beautiful place. Yes, I must go out in the _Vireo_ this very day, even if the wind isn't right for much of a sail." Prudence leaned her head lightly on her companion's shoulder while she recited in a half-voice and with exquisite penetrating intonation: "The day, so mild, Is Heaven's own child, With earth and ocean reconciled. The airs I feel Around me steal Are murmuring to the murmuring keel. "Over the rail My hand I trail Within the shadow of the sail; A joy intense, The cooling sense Glides down my drowsy indolence. "With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Where Summer sings and never dies. O'erveiled with vines, She glows and shines Among her future oil and wines." As she finished the lines Prudence lifted her head and smiled at her companion. That smile somehow made Carolyn's heart sick, it was so softly brilliant. She had a wild notion, for the instant, that a woman who could smile like that, and whose eyes melted like that, was a woman to fly from across the whole world. "Prudence--" began Carolyn, as she had once before begun. This time Prudence did not say, "Ma'am." She responded, "Yes," in a half whisper. Carolyn stood up a little more erectly; she felt her hands growing cold. She went on: "I've often wondered how you happened to engage yourself to Rodney Lawrence." "I shouldn't think you'd wonder about that, when you've just been and done the same thing yourself," was the response. "Now don't be flippant." "No, I won't be. Go on." "Well," Carolyn began again, "perhaps I ought to say that I wonder how, having engaged yourself to Rodney, you could jilt him for anybody else in the world." "Not for Lord Maxwell?" "Not for a thousand Lord Maxwells." "One is quite enough, thank you. Well, if I did wrong, I was speedily punished. I jilted Mr. Lawrence for his lordship; his lordship jilted me for the brewer's daughter. I notice that brewers' daughters over in England get much more than their share of the male nobility."