"I fear so," he said gravely. "If I were you I'd get out--and keep well away from that machine." "Why?" she asked nervously, stepping to the grass beside him. "It _might_ blow up." They backed away rather hastily, side by side. After a while they backed farther away, hand in hand. "I--I hate to leave it there all alone," said the maid, when they had backed completely out of sight of the car. "If there was only some safe place where I could watch and see if it is going to explode." They ventured back a little way and peeped at the motor. "You could take a rowboat and watch it from the water," said Mr. Carr. "But I don't know how to row." Mr. Carr looked at her. Certainly she was the most prepossessing specimen of wholesome, rose-cheeked and ivory-skinned womanhood that he had ever beheld; a trifle nearer thirty-five than twenty-five, he thought, but so sweet and fresh and with such charming eyes and manners. "I have," said Mr. Carr, "several hours at my disposal before I go to town on important business. If you like I will row you out in one of my boats, and then, from a safe distance, we can sit and watch your motor blow up. Shall we?" "It is most kind of you----" "Not at all. It would be most kind of you." She looked sideways at the motor, sideways at the water, sideways at Mr. Carr. It was a very lovely morning in early June. As Mr. Carr handed her into the rowboat with ceremony she swept him a courtesy. Her apron and manners were charmingly incongruous. When she was gracefully seated in the stern Mr. Carr turned for a moment, stared all Oyster Bay calmly in the face through his monocle, then, untying the painter, fairly skipped into the boat with a step distinctly frolicsome. "It's curious how I feel about this," he observed, digging both oars into the water. "_How_ do you feel, Mr. Carr?" "Like a bird," he said softly. And the boat moved off gently through the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay. At that same moment, also, the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay were gently caressing the classic contours of Cooper's Bluff, and upon that monumental headland, seated under sketching umbrellas, Flavilla and Drusilla worked, in a puddle of water colors; and John Chillingham Yates, in becoming white flannels and lilac tie and hosiery, lay on the sod and looked at Drusilla. Silence, delicately accented by the faint harmony of mosquitoes, brooded over Cooper's Bluff. "There's no use," said Drusilla at last; "one can draw a landscape from every point of view except looking _down_ hill. Mr. Yates, how on earth am I to sit here and make a drawing looking down hill?" "Perhaps," he said, "I had better hold your pencil again. Shall I?" "Do you think that would help?" "I think it helps--somehow." Her pretty, narrow hand held the pencil; his sun-browned hand closed over it. She looked at the pad on her knees. After a while she said: "I think, perhaps, we had better draw. Don't you?"