82 The Real Charlotte. 



position of stoker, and Pamela discreetly changed the 

 conversation. 



It seemed a long time to Max and Dinah before their 

 fate was decided, but after some last moments of anguish on 

 the pier they found themselves, the one coiled determinedly 

 on Pamela's lap, and the other smirking in the bow in 

 Garry's arms, as Mr. Hawkins sculled the second relay of 

 the Bruff party out to the launch. The first relay, consist- 

 ing of Christopher and Miss Hope-Drummond, was already 

 on its way down the lake in Mr. Lambert's 5-ton boat, with 

 every inch of canvas set to catch the light and shifty breeze 

 that blew petulantly down from the mountains, and ruffled 

 the glitter of the lake with dark blue smears. The air 

 quivered hotly over the great stones on the shore, drawing 

 out the strong aromatic smell of the damp weeds and the 

 bog-myrtle, and Lady Dysart stood on the end of the pier, 

 and wrung her hands as she thought of Pamela's com- 

 plexion. 



Captain Cursiter was one of the anomalous solcSers whose 

 happiness it is to spend as much time as possible in a boat, 

 dressed in disreputable clothes, with hands begrimed and 

 blistered with oil or ropes as the case may be, and steaming 

 or sailing to nowhere and back again with undying en- 

 thusiasm. He was a thin, brown man, with a moustache 

 rather lighter in colour than the tan of his face, and his 

 beaky nose, combined with his disposition to flee from the 

 haunts of men, had inspired his friends to bestow on him 

 the pet name of " Snipey." The festivity on which he was 

 at present embarked was none of his seeking, and it had 

 been only by strenuous argument, fortified by the artful 

 suggestion that no one else was really competent to work 

 the boat, that Mr. Hawkins had got him into clean flannels 

 and the conduct of the expedition. He knew neither Miss 

 Mullen nor Francie, and his acquaintance with the Dysarts, 

 as with other dwellers in the neighbourhood, was of a slight 

 and unprogressive character, and in strong contrast to the 

 manner in which Mr. Hawkins had become at Bruff" and 

 elsewhere what that young gentleman was pleased to term 

 "the gated infant." During the run from Lismoyle to 

 Bruff" he had been able to occupy himself with the affairs of 

 the steam-launch ; but when Hawkins, his prop and stay, 



