“There isn’t much choice,” Ned replied.  “If they were as different, now, as you and me, I’d take the blonde, of course, aw, and you’d take the brunette.  But Hattie Chapman’s eyes are blue, and her hair isn’t black, you know, so you can’t call her dark, exactly.”

“No more than Laura is exactly light.  Her hair is brown more than golden, and her eyes are hazel.  Hasn’t she a lovely complexion, though?  By Jove!”

“Better than Hattie’s.  Yet I don’t know but Hattie’s features are a little the best.”

“They are.  Now, honest, Ned, which do you prefer?  Say either; I’ll take the one you don’t want.  I haven’t any choice.”

“Neither have I.”

“How shall we settle?”

“Aw, throw for it?”

“Yes.  Isn’t there a backgammon board forward, in that locker, Thomas?”

The board was found and the dice produced.

“The highest takes which?”

“Say Laura Thurston.”

“Very good; throw.”

“You first.”

“No.  Go on.”

Charlie threw with about the same amount of excitement he might have exhibited in a turkey raffle.

“Five-three,” said he; “now for your luck.”

“Six-four!  Laura’s mine.  Satisfied?”

“Perfectly—­if you are.  If not, I don’t mind exchanging.”

“Oh, no.  I’m satisfied.”

Both reclined upon the deck once more with a sigh of relief, and a long silence followed.

“I say,” began Charlie, after a time, “it is a comfort to have these little matters arranged without any trouble, eh?”

“Y-e-s.”

“Do you know, I think I’ll marry mine?”

“I will, if you will.”

“Done!  It is a bargain.”

This “little matter” being arranged, a change gradually took place in the relations of the four.  Ned Salsbury began to invite Laura Thurston out driving and bathing somewhat oftener than before, and Hattie Chapman somewhat less often; while Charlie Burnham followed suit with the last-named young lady.  As the line of demarcation became fixed, the damsels recognized it, and accepted with gracious readiness the cavaliers that Fate, through the agency of a chance-falling pair of dice, had allotted to them.

The other guests of the house remarked the new position of affairs, and passed whispers about it to the effect that the girls had at last succeeded in getting their fish on hooks instead of in a net.  No suitors could have been more devoted than our friends.  It seemed as if each knight bestowed upon the chosen one all the attentions he had hitherto given to both; and whether they went boating, sketching, or strolling upon the sands, they were the very picture of a partie carree of lovers.

Naturally enough, as the young men became more in earnest, with the reticence common to my sex they spoke less frequently and freely on the subject.  Once, however, after an unusually pleasant afternoon, Salsbury ventured a few words.