84 The Real Charlotte. 



trusted hands he had been committed, with urgent instruc- 

 tions to keep an eye on him. Cursiter's eye was renowned 

 for its blighting quahties on occasions such as these, and 

 his jibes at matrimony were looked on by his brother 

 officers as the most finished and scathing expressions of 

 proper feeling on the subject that could be desired ', but it 

 was agreed that he would have his hands full. 



The launch slid smoothly along with a low clicking of the 

 machinery, cutting her way across the reflections of the 

 mountains in pursuit of the tall, white sail of the Daphne^ 

 that seemed each moment to grow taller, as the yacht was 

 steadily overhauled by her more practical comrade. The 

 lake was narrower here, where it neared the end of its 

 twenty-mile span, and so calm that the sheep and cattle 

 grazing on the brown mountains were reflected in its depths, 

 and the yacht seemed as incongruous in the midst of them as 

 the ark on Mount Ararat. The last bend of the lake was 

 before them ; the Daphne crept round it, moved mysteriously 

 by a wind that was imperceptible to the baking company on 

 the steam-launch, and by the time the latter had churned her 

 way round the fir-clad point, the yacht was letting go her 

 anchor near the landing-place of a large wooded island. 



At a picnic nothing is of much account before luncheon, 

 and the gloom of hunger hung like a pall over the party 

 that took ashore luncheon baskets, unpacked knives and 

 forks, and gathered stones to put on the corners of the 

 table-cloth. But such a hunger is Nature's salve for the in- 

 adequacy of human beings to amuse themselves ; the body 

 comes to the relief of the mind with the compassionate 

 superiority of a good servant, and confers inward festivity upon 

 many a dull dinner party. Max and Dinah were quite of 

 this opinion. They had behaved with commendablefortitude 

 during the voyage, though in the earlier part of it a shudder- 

 ing dejection on Max's part had seemed to Pamela's trained 

 eye to forebode sea-sickness, but at the lifting of the luncheon 

 basket into the punt their self-control deserted them. The 

 succulent trail left upon the air, palpable to the dog-nose as 

 the smoke of the steam-launch to the human eye, beguiled 

 them into eff'orts to follow, which were only suppressed by 

 their being secretly immured in the cabin by Garry. No 

 one but he saw the two wan faces that yearned at the tiny 



