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"Flora, be silent. I desire you to be silent immediately. I should have thought, I must say, that you would have known better than to use, in order to wound and insult me, the irresponsible libel of a demented old woman. To say the least of it, that appears to me to be hardly cricket. Particularly with your grandmamma lying helpless and unable to defend herself."

Flora shrugged a shoulder, possibly a trifle ashamed. "Well, in any case," she said, "Angus says he will marry us. He says he doesn't see why he shouldn't. We talked to him about it this afternoon. Oh, dear me, papa, surely if we have to spend months and years more on this tedious island, we must pass the time as best we can!"

Her voice broke on a sob. The prospect of marrying Peter, though it might alleviate the island's tedium, could not compensate Flora for losing the world.

"Oh, tut, my dear, tut," her mamma soothed her. "We mustn't be peevish, you know. I shall have to talk to you like little Harriet's mamma in the poemI'm sure I used to be always saying it to you when you were little:

"These slight disappointments are sent to prepare
For what may hereafter befall;

For seasons of real disappointment and care,
Which commonly happen to all.

"For, just like to-day with its holiday lost,
Is life and its comforts at best:

Our pleasures are blighted, our purposes crossed,
To teach us it is not our rest.

"And when those distresses and crosses appear
With which you may shortly be tried,
You'll wonder that ever you wasted a tear.

"Oh, mamma, do be quiet!"

Heathcliff got up and went to the door.

"They are very noisy," he said, listening. "There are a lot of them coming this way. I expect they are going to hold a meeting outside the Yams-a demonstration. They'll probably call for you, papa. They half suspect, you know, that you had something to do with grandmamma's performance this morning—knew of it anyhow. I told them you didn't."

"I? Indeed, no. It is your Uncle Denis they should blame for that, not me."

"They do blame Uncle Denis, for being a fool, and probably tipsy. But they don't suspect him of knowing of grandmamma's plot. Uncle Denis is pretty popular, you see, on the whole, so far as any Smith can be. It's you they seem so down on-after grandmamma, who's out of action now. Anyhow they're com

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There were confused noises without.

"I shall not," said Mr. Smith, squaring his shoulders and throwing out his chest, "take the slightest notice."

6

All the evening and far into the night the noise of demonstration rolled. Hindley Smith-Rimski, playing chess with Mr. Thinkwell at Belle Vue, heard it, and said, "The populace appear to clamour for my family's blood. I can't say I'm surprised. Where are your offspring?"

Mr. Thinkwell looked vaguely round the room. "They seem to be all out. I suppose, like Paul and Merton, they are watching the evening's doings. I can't say, myself, that mere demonstrations of excitement interest me greatly. Persons carried away by feeling are, as a rule, at their least interesting."

"Besides," said Hindley, "being in deucedly bad form. Knight takes your rook. . I suppose your

daughter will be all right?"

"I imagine so," said Mr. Thinkwell. "She is no doubt with her brothers."

7

As a matter of fact, Rosamond was not with her brothers, for William was on the shore pursuing the zoölogical investigations which the misconduct of the convicts had abruptly interrupted in the morning, and Charles had walked up into the hills. Rosamond was with Captain Paul, who, tucking her hand firmly into his arm, was taking care of her, as they strolled about listening to the conversations, demonstrations, and music. Rosamond had no great inclination to be taken care of, and would have preferred solitude, but Captain Paul thought that unsafe for young females on such a night as this.

"Might meet with unpleasantness," he said.

Meet with unpleasantness! Rosamond thought that would be dreadful. It sounded so sinister, unpleasantness in the abstract, a creature stalking along the roads, that one might meet at any turning face to face. One would run for one's life, but Unpleasantness would run faster, hurrying in a horrid lumbering gallop. . . . No, one must not meet Unpleasantness. So Rosamond submitted to having her hand tucked into Captain Paul's arm, and to being escorted about her own island.

She could not help feeling a little happy to-day, deep in her soul, despite the disaster that had befallen them all, and that had so vexed some of the islanders, and, in particular, her dear Flora. Of course it was very vexing for them, to lose their Promised Land at a blow, like this. Vexing, too, for her father, who had his

work in Cambridge, to which he was so oddly attached. One might not be able to understand how any one could prefer work in Cambridge to idleness on a coral island, but still, fathers are odd, and there it was.

Rosamond was not so selfish as to desire her father to be permanently marooned and the islanders permanently disappointed, but, as this would appear to have occurred, for herself she could not but feel rather pleased, though the thought of her dog Peter somewhat distressed her.

"Some kind of sufficiently navigable craft might be built, possibly," Captain Paul speculated aloud to himself. "Though the Lord alone knows how..

Rosamond reflected that the Lord's alone knowing would not help them very much. In her view, it could not be done. No one on desert islands ever escaped from them in boats-not even in real boats saved from the ship. Even Masterman Ready (who was so clever that he could build houses, stockades, turtle traps, anything, for poor, stupid Mr. Seagrave, who could not help him at all), had known that he could not hope to do that. Even Jack, Ralph, and Peterkin, who had made a wonderful boat of chestnut planks, with nothing but an axe, had only used it to voyage round the island, and, on the one occasion when they went further, had been very nearly wrecked in a storm. Even Robinson Crusoe, so busy, persevering, and helped by Providence, had failed here. No; obviously it could not be done. Elsewhere one built ships, but not on desert islands. One waited for ships instead, and, if ships did not come, one went on waiting.

"I expect," said Rosamond, "we shall have to wait to be rescued."

CHAPTER XXII

CHARLES

I

CHARLES climbed above the crowds, up the steep wood path, beneath dense spreading boughs that hid him from the moon. He was shut in warm, scented darkness, with sleeping birds, huddled ball-shaped, heads under wings, who loaded the branches like coloured fruits, with monkeys who woke and chattered at his step, with armadillos who rattled like corn-crakes, fireflies who sparked like flames in a rick, tortoises who cried of love. Feathery boughs of pepper trees struck him softly across the face; pollen from brushed flowers dusted him and made him sneeze, and all the perfumes of the forest assailed him on small warm wandering winds, which bore no comfort on their wings.

He climbed above the woods, and on the hill's rocky brow met the moon. It stared low from a purple sky, with millions of enormous stars, drenching the island and the sea with pale gold.

Dreams, dreams, dreams! The perfumed island was a dream, afloat in a vast and shining ocean. Only the golden moon and the myriad stars burned on, imperishable lamps of truth. Beauty was a dream, that flashed across one's path, brilliant bird of paradise, and vanished in confusion and bitterness. Beauty fled; one woke on a cold hillside, alone and palely loitering. Dreams, dreams, dreams!

From the shores below confused sounds came up, as of an island in uproar.

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