"I must have pluck and courage. Others have gone through as bad a time as I am having now. Some women seem to be happy without husbands or lovers. Monica is. She never seems to have a thought about them, except to like a friendly chat with them occasionally. I must rise above my trouble. I will not brood over it. I shall never be tempted to leave dad now. I must learn to look at life differently. God will help me. My life belongs to Him, and He has arranged it so. I will try not to pity myself any more. If only I could forget!" She caught up her oars again and swung the boat round. Rowing back against the tide was hard work, but the exercise to muscle did her good, and the desire to battle with difficulty was realised. When she brought the boat back to its mooring-place she saw that visitors were with her father. A young fellow, seeing her, sprang towards her. He was a curly-haired merry-faced boy of twenty-two, a special crony of hers. "It isn't often the mother and I drive out paying calls," he said, as he assisted in mooring the boat to her anchor, "but I was as dull as ditch-water. When I'm like that my mind always veers to you! Buck me up. I'm as flabby as a codfish. This heat, and life as it is seen from our house, is pretty deadly, I can tell you." "You're too idle," Sidney said, looking at him with laughing eyes. "Hot weather and idleness naturally sap all your energy and spirit out of you. But if you had come down early this morning and told me you would take me for a day's sail in your new boat, we should both be returning now, enormously hungry, and ready for anything." "Oh, why didn't I! But this scandalous little agent keeps me pottering over fusty musty documents on purpose to annoy. And the governor had a bad night, and so, of course, he insisted upon an extra lot of business being done; and first I had to be shut up with Dobbs, and then I had to be shut up with him, telling him every item of our conversation. The doctor is an old fool; he won't let Dobbs come near the governor; as if my bungling recital isn't fifty times worse than the genuine article! I assure you I wasn't done till one o'clock, and then I don't know who was exhausted most, the governor or myself." Sidney went up the garden and greeted a tall, handsome woman who was talking to her father.