Drusilla gazed at the purple horizon unembarrassed.  “Am I?” she said absently.

[Illustration:  “Perhaps,’ he said, ’I had better hold your pencil again’”]

“Are you?” he repeated, close to her shoulder.

She turned and looked into his sun-tanned face curiously.

“What is it—­to love?  Is it”—­she looked at him undisturbed—­“is it to be quite happy and lazy with a man like you?”

He was silent.

“I thought,” she continued, “that there would be some hesitation, some shyness about it—­some embarrassment.  But there, has been none between you and me.”

He said nothing.

She went on absently: 

“You said, the other day, very simply, that you cared a great deal for me; and I was not very much surprised.  And I said that I cared very much for you....  And, by the way, I meant to ask you yesterday; are we engaged?”

“Are we?” he asked.

“Yes—­if you wish....  Is that all there is to an engagement?”

“There’s a ring,” observed Flavilla, dabbing on too much ultramarine and using a sponge.  “You’ve got to get her one, Mr. Yates.”

Drusilla looked at the man beside her and smiled.

“How simple it is, after all!” she said.  “I have read in the books Pa-pah permits us to read such odd things about love and lovers....  Are we lovers, Mr. Yates?  But, of course, we must be, I fancy.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Some time or other, when it is convenient,” observed Flavilla, “you ought to kiss each other occasionally.”

“That doesn’t come until I’m a bride, does it?” asked Drusilla.

“I believe it’s a matter of taste,” said Flavilla, rising and naively stretching her long, pretty limbs.

She stood a moment on the edge of the bluff, looking down.

“How curious!” she said after a moment.  “There is Pa-pah on the water rowing somebody’s maid about.”

“What!” exclaimed Yates, springing to his feet.

“How extraordinary,” said Drusilla, following him to the edge of the bluff; “and they’re singing, too, as they row!”

From far below, wafted across the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay, Mr. Carr’s rich and mellifluous voice was wafted shoreward: 

“I der-reamt that I dwelt in ma-arble h-a-l-ls.”

The sunlight fell on the maid’s coquettish cap and apron, and sparkled upon the buckle of one dainty shoe.  It also glittered across the monocle of Mr. Carr.

“Pa-pah!” cried Flavilla.

Far away her parent waved a careless greeting to his offspring, then resumed his oars and his song.

“How extraordinary!” said Flavilla.  “Why do you suppose that Pa-pah is rowing somebody’s maid around the bay, and singing that way to her?”

“Perhaps it’s one of our maids,” said Drusilla; “but that would be rather odd, too, wouldn’t it, Mr. Yates?”

“A—­little,” he admitted.  And his heart sank.