great adaptability to the purposes of the coquette. To the mind of this impartial critic, a fan was not half so effective and terrible a weapon as the present style of bonnet. "Bother Addison!" he suddenly exclaimed aloud. "I beg your pardon," said a voice from the depths of the obnoxious head-gear before him. "I was thinking of the author of _The Spectator_. You know Johnson says we ought to give our days and nights to the study of Addison. Don't you think it would be more profitable for us to devote our days and nights to the study of Nature?" "Undoubtedly; and especially in this short-summered region, where there are only a few months of the year in which one can pursue one's studies out of doors. My days are spent on the shore, and as for my nights--well, even at night I often go to sleep to the fancy that I am drifting over the water with just such a gentle movement as this." "I hope," said Edward gravely, "that you have an efficient oarsman. You couldn't row and sleep at the same time, you know." He looked up to see if his companion was struck with the force of this observation, but although they were moving towards the east, the bonnet pointed due north. There was also a slight suspicion of the wintry north in the tone with which she replied: "Oh, there is no labour connected with it; I am merely drifting--drifting to the Isle of Sleep." "That is a pretty idea, but it is too lonely and listless to suit me. I should prefer to have a young lady in the boat--and a pair of oars." "In that case you would have to row," and, with a slightly mocking accent, "you couldn't row and sleep at the same time, you know." "In that case I should never want to sleep. No, please, Miss DeBerczy, don't look to the north again. Every time your gaze is riveted upon that frozen region my heart sinks within me. I feel as if I were not entertaining you as well as I should." "Oh, don't let that illusion disturb you. I have never doubted that you were entertaining me as well as you--could." A brief silence fell upon them, broken only by the regular plash of the oars. In the young man's conversational attacks there had been nothing but a light play of sunny humour, but in this last retort of hers there was something like the glimmer of cold steel. It wounded him, yet he was unwilling either to conceal or reveal the hurt. But Helene DeBerczy had this weakness, common to generous souls, that she