At this moment another partner of Bertha's came up, and was about to carry her off, when she said: "I suppose the Osprey can sail still, Major Mallett?" "Oh, yes. She is a lame duck, you know, but she can get about all right." "Well, why don't you ask mamma and me to take a sail with you tomorrow afternoon?" "I shall be very happy to do so," he said, "but I almost think that you had better wait until she gets her spars. I don't think that they will be finished before tomorrow evening. The men can get to work early in the morning, and we can be here by two o'clock next day." "No, I think that we will come tomorrow, Major Mallett. "It will be a novelty to sail in a cripple, won't it, mamma? "Besides, you know, or you ought to know, that the day after tomorrow is Sunday, and that at present our plans are arranged for going up to town on Monday." "That being so," Frank said with a smile, "by all means come tomorrow. Will you come to lunch, or afterwards?" "Afterwards, I think. We will be down at the club landing stage at half-past two." "Bertha is bent upon taking possession of you tomorrow," Lady Greendale said, smiling, as the girl turned away; "and I shall be glad for her to have a quiet two or three hours out of the racket. A large party is very fatiguing, and I think that it has been too much for her. Yesterday and today she has been quite unlike herself; at one time sitting quiet and saying nothing, at other times rattling away with Miss Haverley and Lady Olive, and absolutely talking down both of them, which I should have thought impossible. She seems to me to be altogether over-excited. I thought it would have been a rest for her to get away for a week from the fag in London, but I am sorry now that we came down altogether. I am a little worried about it, Frank." "Well, the season is drawing towards its end now, Lady Greendale, and if you can get a short time at home no doubt it will do you good. I did not think that Bertha was looking well when I saw her yesterday." Frank danced a couple more dances, and then went to Lady Greendale and said: "Will you make my excuses to Bertha? and tell her that, having shown myself here, so that it might not be thought that I was out of temper at my bad luck, I shall be off. Indeed, I do not feel quite up to entering into the thing. You can understand, dear Lady Greendale, that at present things are going rather hardly with me." She gave him a sympathetic look. "I can understand, Frank," she said; "but here she comes. You can make your excuses yourself." "I can quite understand that you don't care about staying," Bertha said, when he repeated what he had said to her mother. "Well, I will give you the next dance, or, what will be nicer, I will sit it out with you. Ah, here is my partner. "I am afraid I have made a mistake, Mr. Jennings, and have got my card mixed up. Do you mind taking the thirteenth dance instead of this? I shall be very much obliged if you will."