John Everett answered the carping question in Jane's eyes with gay composure. "I promised Buster yesterday that I would come home early and join him at the beach," he said coolly. "I want to have a hand in digging that hole, myself," he added, rescuing the abandoned shovel from a sandy entombment. Jane surveyed him gravely. "If you are going to be here all the afternoon," she said, "perhaps you will not mind if I go home. There are windows to clean, and I am sure Mrs. Belknap would not mind my leaving Master Buster in your care, sir." His crestfallen face afforded the girl a transient amusement as she walked across the sand in quest of her hat. But Fate, in the small person of the infant, happily intervened as she was firmly inserting her hat pins and otherwise preening herself for hasty flight. "Where 'oo doin', Jane?" he demanded imperiously. "I am going home," replied Jane, with a conciliatory smile. "Mr. Everett will stay with you, dear." "No!" murmured the sagacious infant, laying hold of the girl's gown with a determined hand. "N-o-o!" The last word ended in a loud wail of protest. Jane flushed uncomfortably under John Everett's observant eyes, as she stooped to gently disengage herself. "I must go, dear," she repeated. "I have some work to do at home." The child responded by throwing both chubby arms about her neck and wailing discordantly in her ear. "Come, come, Buster!" exclaimed his uncle wrathfully; "you can stop that howling. Jane won't leave you. I'll take myself off instead, as I see I am decidedly out of it." The small boy instantly relaxed his hold upon the girl and flew to his uncle. "No-o!" he shouted. "I want my Jane, an'--an' I want 'oo, Uncle Jack!" He clambered up his accommodating relative's trouser leg, and was assisted to a triumphant perch upon that young gentleman's broad shoulder, where he beamed upon Jane with innocent delight. "I yuve my Uncle Jack," he announced conclusively, "and I yuve my Jane!" "That's all right, young fellow, and a proper sentiment too," murmured John Everett. Then he cast a pleading look at Jane. "Why persist in spoiling a good time?" he asked. "I'll play in the sand like a good boy, and I promise you I won't teach Buster any bad words, nor throw wet sand on his clean frock." Jane's pretty face was a study. "Very well, sir," she said coldly. "It is not for me to say, I suppose." Then she sat down at a safe distance from the hole in the sand--in which the small diplomat, satisfied with the result of his _coup_, immediately resumed operations--and fixed her eyes on the sail-haunted horizon. All the sense of happy freedom which the wind had brought her from across the sea had suddenly vanished. She was gallingly conscious of the bonds of her servitude and of the occasional friendly glances which the big, pleasant-faced young fellow on the sand bestowed upon her.