But what seems the matter with me is that I can't sail alone; my ship must be one of a pair, must have, in the waste of waters, a--what do you cal it?--a consort. I don't ask you to stay on board with me, but I must keep your sail in sight for orientation. I don't in the least myself know, I assure you, the points of the compass. But with a lead I can perfectly fol ow. You MUST be my lead."

"How can you be sure," she asked, "where I should take you?"

"Why, from your having brought me safely thus far. I should never have got here without you. You've provided the ship itself, and, if you've not quite seen me aboard, you've attended me, ever so kindly, to the dock. Your own vessel is, al conveniently, in the next berth, and you can't desert me now." She showed him again her amusement, which struck him even as excessive, as if, to his surprise, he made her also a little nervous; she treated him in fine as if he were not uttering truths, but making pretty figures for her diversion. "My vessel, dear Prince?" she smiled. "What vessel, in the world, have I? This little house is al our ship, Bob's and mine--and thankful we are, now, to have it. We've wandered far, living, as you may say, from hand to mouth, without rest for the soles of our feet. But the time has come for us at last to draw in." He made at this, the young man, an indignant protest. "You talk about rest--it's too selfish!--when you're just launching me on adventures?"

She shook her head with her kind lucidity. "Not adventures--heaven forbid! You've had yours--as I've had mine; and my idea has been, al along, that we should neither of us begin again. My own last, precisely, has been doing for you al you so prettily mention. But it consists simply in having conducted you to rest. You talk about ships, but they're not the comparison. Your tossings are over--you're practical y IN port. The port," she concluded, "of the Golden Isles."

He looked about, to put himself more in relation with the place; then, after an hesitation, seemed to speak certain words instead of certain others. "Oh, I know where I AM--! I do decline to be left, but what I came for, of course, was to thank you. If to-day has seemed, for the first time, the end of preliminaries, I feel how little there would have been any at al without you. The first were whol y yours."

"Wel ," said Mrs. Assingham, "they were remarkably easy. I've seen them, I've HAD

them," she smiled,

"more difficult. Everything, you must feel, went of itself. So, you must feel, everything stil goes." The Prince quickly agreed. "Oh, beautiful y! But you had the conception."

"Ah, Prince, so had you!"

He looked at her harder a moment. "You had it first. You had it most." She returned his look as if it had made her wonder. "I LIKED it, if that's what you mean.