Two days after, they were settled in comfortable rooms overlooking the hotel grounds. A slope down to a small lake boasted some gnarled old live-oaks and pines, and one side was set out with a young orange grove. Across the water one could see several more or less pretentious new houses built around the shore. The breeze tasted of pine and Molly had slept a night through without coughing. "But, Heavens!" she complained, the second afternoon, lolling back in a wooden arm-chair on the hotel gallery; "isn't there anything to do?" Alexina and the young man in clerical garb were her audience. He was the Reverend Harrison Henderson, and had charge of the Episcopal Church of Aden and lived at the hotel. He seemed a definite and earnest man. His blond profile was strong. It was a rather immobile face, perhaps, but it lighted with very evident pleasure as he answered Mrs. Garnier. "How would you like to go out to Nancy?" he proposed; "it's quite an affair for a lake down here, and a young fellow out there rents sail-boats." "Charming," agreed Molly, sitting up. "You have ideas; you can't have been here long." Mr. Harrison smiled, though it was an acknowledging rather than a mirthful smile. Life is too earnest for mere laughter, but his zeal to serve Mrs. Garnier was not to be doubted. "What do you say, Miss Blair?" he asked, turning to that young person. "Who?--I?" Alexina had been leaning forward with her elbow on the gallery railing, her eyes looking off to a line of pines against the sky. She had been wondering how she should inquire about the Leroys, and if she really wanted to. She came back to the veranda and the present. "I think it would be charming, too," she replied. "Then we'll go right away. I'll order the carriage, so as to see the sunset," he said, and rose. "You will need wraps for Mrs. Garnier." Somehow a man never thinks the other woman will need anything. He spoke briskly and went off down the plank sidewalk towards town with a swing. The day was fair, the air was soft, and the blood in the Reverend Henderson, despite the dogmatic taint in it, was red and young. * * * * * Out at Lake Nancy Osceola, a young fellow in flannel shirt, knickerbockers and canvas shoes, was scanning the shore from a wooden pier which ran out the extent of shallow water, having just made fast the sail-boat rising and falling with the swell at the pier's end. A grove of well grown orange trees stretched up the slope from the water. The trees were heavy with fruit and looked sturdy and well cared for. To the right stood the frame packing sheds, and beyond, amid higher foliage against the cerulean sky, showed a house roof.