So in secret hopes of this pleasing episode—­but not giving any such reason to her protesting family—­she vigorously resisted all attempts to deprive her of her fish scales, golden comb, and role in the coming water fete.  And now the programmes were printed and it was too late for them to intervene.

She rose, holding out the glittering, finny garment, which flashed like a collapsed fish in the sunshine.

“It’s finished,” she said.  “Now I’m going off somewhere by myself to rehearse.”

“In the water?” asked her father uneasily.

“Certainly.”

As Flavilla was a superb swimmer nobody could object.  Later, a maid went down to the landing, stowed away luncheon, water-bottles and costume in the canoe.  Later, Flavilla herself came down to the water’s edge, hatless, sleeves rolled up, balancing a paddle across her shoulders.

As the paddle flashed and the canoe danced away over the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay, Flavilla hummed the threadbare German song which she was to sing in her role of Lorelei, and headed toward Northport.

“The thing to do,” she thought to herself, “is to find some nice, little, wooded inlet where I can safely change my costume and rehearse.  I must know whether I can swim in this thing—­and whether I can sing while swimming about.  It would be more effective, I think, than merely sitting on the float, and singing and combing my hair through all those verses.”

The canoe danced across the water, the paddle glittered, dipped, swept astern, and flashed again.  Flavilla was very, very happy for no particular reason, which is the best sort of happiness on earth.

There is a sandy neck of land which obstructs direct navigation between the sacred waters of Oyster Bay and the profane floods which wash the gravelly shores of Northport.

“I’ll make a carry,” thought Flavilla, beaching her canoe.  Then, looking around her at the lonely stretch of sand flanked by woods, she realized at once that she need seek no farther for seclusion.

First of all, she dragged the canoe into the woods, then rapidly undressed and drew on the mermaid’s scaly suit, which fitted her to the throat as beautifully as her own skin.

It was rather difficult for her to navigate on land, as her legs were incased in a fish’s tail, but, seizing her comb and mirror, she managed to wriggle down to the water’s edge.

A few sun-warmed rocks jutted up some little distance from shore; with a final and vigorous wriggle Flavilla launched herself and struck out for the rocks, holding comb and mirror in either hand.

Fishtail and accessories impeded her, but she was the sort of swimmer who took no account of such trifles; and after a while she drew herself up from the sea, and, breathless, glittering, iridescent, flopped down upon a flat rock in the sunshine.  From which she took a careful survey of the surroundings.