"There he is, on the end of the pier! That's grandpa waving his handkerchief! Don't you see it? The red-and-white cotton one! God bless him! How _wae_ his little present made me! He has been keeping it all these years. But my silk handkerchief is too damp--it won't float at all. Will you lend me----Ah, thank you! Good-bye! good-bye! good----"

The girl hung over the stern rail, leaning her breast upon it and waving the handkerchief as long as the pier and its people were in sight, and when they were gone from recognition she watched the line of the land until it began to fade into the clouds, and there was no more to be seen of what she had looked upon every day of her life until to-day.

"The dear little island! I never thought it was so beautiful! Perhaps I might have been happy even there, if I had tried. Now, if I had only had somebody for company! How silly of me! I've been five years wishing and praying to get away, and now! ... It _is_ lovely, though, isn't it? Just like a bird on the water! And when you've been born in a place ... the dear little island! And the old folks, too! How lonely they'll be, after all! I wonder if I shall ever.... I'll go below. The wind's freshening, and this water in the wake is making my eyes... Good-bye, little birdie! I'll come back--I'll.... Yes, never fear, I'll----"

The laughter and impetuous talking, the gentle humour and pathos, had broken at length into a sob, and the girl had wheeled about and disappeared down the cabin stairs. John Storm stood looking after her. He had hardly spoken, but his great brown eyes were moist.

II.

Her father had been the only son of Parson Quayle, and chaplain to the bishop at Bishopscourt. It was there he had met her mother, who was lady's maid to the bishop's wife. The maid was a bright young Frenchwoman, daughter of a French actress, famous in her day, and of an officer under the Empire, who had never been told of her existence. Shortly after their marriage the chaplain was offered a big mission station in Africa, and, being a devotee, he clutched at it without fear of the fevers of the coast. But his young French wife was about to become a mother, and she shrank from the perils of his life abroad, so he took her to his father's house at Peel, and bade her farewell for five years.