“Do I not?” he asked, as a warm smile irradiated his face. This was the first time she had seen him smile since her sudden appearance on the island. “Come and sit down, then, and I will pour out the tea.” They placed themselves at the table, upon which she had already set the tea-pot. They made some pretence of eating and drinking, and then Gloria inquired: “Have we time to put everything in order before we go?” “Oh, yes,” responded the young man, “quite time enough.” And together they went to work and cleared away the table, and washed and replaced the dishes. Next they took all the meat and bread and fish that was in the house and put it out in the shed, so that Priscilla and Nicholas, the cat and dog, might have something to eat during the week of Granny Lindsay’s absence. Then David Lindsay covered up the fire, and locked up the house, all except the door by which they would go out. “Ah! suppose Granny Lindsay should come back very soon?” said Gloria. “She will not come back before I have time to write her a letter, inclosed in one to the priest, and telling them both all about our position,” said David Lindsay. “That is all, then. I believe I have no other anxiety,” said Gloria, as they left the house together. David Lindsay walked in advance, carrying his own large bag in one hand, and Gloria’s little one in the other. Gloria followed, with her hands in her muff, and so they reached the sands where she had landed. “We shall have to use your boat, lady dear, since mine lies bottom upward on the beach, waiting for repairs,” he said, as he placed the two bags in the skiff and handed his companion to a seat in the stern. “It is uncle’s boat; but we can send it back by a man from La Compte’s Landing,” replied Gloria, as her escort took the oars and laid himself stoutly to them. They first crossed the water to a landing on the main opposite the little island. David Lindsay pushed the boat up on the sands, and beckoned to an old negro man who was seen standing in the open door of his hut, and commissioned him or his wife to go across to the island every day to attend to the needs of Winny, the cow, and to the pig and the poultry; and gave them the use of all the milk and eggs until Dame Lindsay’s return. Then he pushed off and rowed away from the place. La Compte’s Landing lay two miles down the coast, and it took a half hour’s hard rowing to reach its wharf and boat-house on the sands. Above these the land, covered with a thicket of trees, rose abruptly for several hundred feet. From the midst of the trees on the summit might be seen the chimneys and peaked roof of La Compte’s Lodge, and, farther down, the steeple of St. Luke’s church. “This is my place also, David Lindsay, and it will soon be our place. But I would not live here. It is too near the Promontory,” said Gloria, as they landed. An old negro man stood by the flagstaff. “Gwine to take de boat, sar?” he inquired of the young man. “Yes,” answered the latter.