"I wish I could amass a fortune; indeed, I'd be content if I could earn my living any way," she said, as if she were communing with herself rather than addressing him. "If I could earn some money, and help Dick!" Her voice died away, and she sighed softly. He regarded her dreamily. "Don't think of anything so--unnatural," he said. She raised her eyes, and looked at him with surprise. "Is it unnatural for a woman--a girl--to earn her own living?" she said. "Yes," he said emphatically. "Women were made for men to work for, not to toil themselves." Nell laughed, in simple mockery of the sentiment. "What nonsense! As if we were dolls or something to be wrapped up in lavender! Why, half the women in Shorne Mills work! You see them driving their donkeys down to the beach for sand--haven't you seen them with bags on each side?--and doing washing, and making butter and going to market. Why, I should have to work if anything happened to mamma. At least, she has often said so. She has--what is it?--oh, an annuity or something of the kind; and if she died, Dick and I would have to 'face the world,' as she puts it." He said nothing, but looked at her through the thin blue cloud of his cigarette. She looked so sweet, so girlish, so--yes, so helpless--lying there in the sunlight, one brown paw supporting her shapely head, the other--after the manner of girls--dabbling in the water. A pang of compassion smote him. "It's a devil of a world," he muttered, almost to himself. "Do you think so?" she said, with surprise. "I don't. At any rate, I don't think so this afternoon." "Why this afternoon?" he asked, half curiously. "Oh, I don't know. Perhaps it's the sunshine, or--or--do you think it's the mackerel?" She laughed. "But I feel so happy and free from care. And yet all the old trouble remains. There's Dick's future--and--oh, all the rest. But this afternoon everything seems bright and hopeful. I wonder why?" She looked at him wistfully, as if he might perhaps explain; but Vernon said nothing. "Have you really finished that cigarette? You smoke much less quickly than Dick. Well, there's another ready; and when you've finished that, I think we ought to be getting back. I want--let me see--yes, ten more fish, and I can get them when we get farther out." They set the sail, and the _Annie Laurie_ glided out of the placid little cove into the open sea. As Vernon steered for the Head, behind which Shorne Mills sheltered, he sighed unconsciously. He, too, had been happy and free from care that morning, and the afternoon seemed full of indescribable peace and happiness. He, like Nell, wondered why. A day or two ago--or was it a month, a year?--he had been depressed and low-spirited, and firmly convinced that life was not worth living; but this afternoon---- What a pretty picture she made in her jersey, that fitted her like a skin, with the soft black hair rippling beneath the edge of the tam-o'-shanter!