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Races, painted the town red that night, and next day pulled off a marvelous deal in cattle. He’s made quite a good thing out of it. Apparently he’s going in for stock dealing as well as droving. Dad says he’d make a fine stock-buyer if he wasn’t quite so wild. He’s got any amount of ability. Dad likes him.”

“He’s very good looking,” said Mrs. Hemingway; and dismissing the drover from the conversation began to talk about her new car.

They reached the two-roomed shack—one of a row of small summer cottages facing the long sweep of the ocean beach—and undressing within the house, ran down the slope of the white, grass-tufted sandhills to the foaming line of breakers on the beach. They all bathed. Mrs. Ford, apparently forgetting that she had described herself as an old woman, plunged into the surf, and battled with the tumbling waves with quite as keen an enjoyment as Ann or her daughter, or any of the children.

And after they were out and dressed once more, they sat in the cretonne-covered chairs in the front room of the shack—whose wide doors opened to the panorama of blue sea, green hills, and racing surf—and ate an enormous meal of cakes and sandwiches, and drank large cups of steaming tea. Ann couldn’t help enjoying the day, but she wished she had not seen Rodney. Or was she glad that she had seen him? That she knew he was not far away? Impatiently she dismissed that question. True to her resolve, she had been doing her best not to think of him—to call up another train of thought directly she found the memory of his face, his voice returning. But today she couldn’t help seeing the picture of him stretched out on the fern of the hillside, listening to her as she read