Dear Sir:--Has it ever occurred to you that it is scarcely fair to my sisters, Cécile and Paula, that I, the youngest, should be the sole recipient of so many poetic gems? Inasmuch as your acquaintance with them is precisely that of our own, my sense of fairness no longer permits of my being the only favoured one. I must, therefore, request that you transfer your delicate attentions for the next few weeks, at least. This measure will also give me an opportunity to recover from the emotions produced by your latest:--"Hermione's Eyes" ... which, by the way, do not happen to be "grey as the sleeping sea." Thanking you for your delicate attentions, and in the hope that my sisters may appreciate them even more than my limited poetic faculty has permitted, Very truly yours, HERMIONE BELL. "There," said Hermione, "if that doesn't send the sentimental youth flapping out to sea, I'll give him something that will." She sealed and addressed the letter and proceeded to dress, putting on a white-serge sailor blouse and skirt, the latter short enough to clear her trim ankles. The thick, black hair she wound in snug bands about her head, added a crimson ribbon, and capped the whole with a white tam. Thus costumed she appeared a tall, slenderly graceful girl with a pretty, tantalising face, of which one carried away an impression of warm, vivid colouring, sapphire eyes, tip-tilted nose, and red lips ever ready to return insults for the kisses which would seem to fit them. Hermione always looked slender to the point of being thin when smartly dressed; it needed her bathing-suit or a riding-habit to reveal her as the Diana which she was. Whether for good or ill, the mother had left a rich legacy of physical beauty to her three girls. As Hermione went on deck she saw Wood pulling away in the dinghy in the direction of the _Daffodil_. He had declined the offer of a man to row him, and had promised to do his best to bring Applebo back for luncheon. "Where is Huntington going?" asked Hermione of Cécile. "I thought he was to stay for lunch." "So he is. We sent him over to see if he couldn't induce the Pilot-fish to come, too. It seems they were classmates at Yale." "Applebo won't come," said Hermione. "Why not?" asked her father. "It would strip him of his sentimental pose to be formally presented. I'm going ashore to post a letter." The quartermaster brought her own little cedar skiff alongside, and Hermione got aboard and pulled in for the landing of the Reading Room. Arrived, the boatman took charge of the skiff, and Hermione started to walk up the steep path which led through the scrub pines and was a short cut to the village. She had gone about half the distance when she saw, waddling rapidly toward her and resembling in the thicket some gnome or troll, a short, squat figure which she recognised immediately as the Finn.