“Now that the little monkey has gone, I may be able at last to catch and fix a likeness of her,” I said:  “in this case a recollection is better than the changing quicksilver reality.”

“You take it as a study of ugliness, I suppose?”

“Do not be so hard upon the child, Christine.”

“Hard?  Why, she adores me,” said my friend, going off to her hammock under the tree.

Several days passed, and the boat returned not.  I accomplished a fine amount of work, and Christine a fine amount of swinging in the hammock and dreaming.  At length one afternoon I gave my final touch, and carried my sketch over to the pre-Raphaelite lady for criticism.  “What do you see?” I said.

“I see a wild-looking child with yellow eyes, a mat of curly black hair, a lank little bodice, her two thin brown arms embracing a gaunt old dog with crooked legs, big feet and turned-in toes.”

“Is that all?”

“All.”

“You do not see latent beauty, proud courage, and a possible great gulf of love in that poor wild little face?”

“Nothing of the kind,” replied Christine decidedly.  “I see an ugly little girl:  that is all.”

The next day the boat returned, and brought back five persons—­the old grandfather, Felipa, Drollo, Miguel of the island and—­Edward Bowne.

“Already?” I said.

“Tired of the Madre, Kitty:  thought I would come up here and see you for a while.  I knew you must be pining for me.”

“Certainly,” I replied:  “do you not see how I have wasted away?”

He drew my arm through his and raced me down the plank-walk toward the shore, where I arrived laughing and out of breath.

“Where is Christine?” he asked.

I came back into the traces at once:  “Over there in the hammock.  You wish to go to the house first, I suppose?”

“Of course not.”

“But she did not come to meet you, Edward, although she knew you had landed.”

“Of course not, also.”

“I do not understand you two.”

“And of course not, a third time,” said Edward, looking down at me with a smile.  “What do quiet, peaceful little artists know about war?”

“Is it war?”

“Something very like it, Kitty.  What is that you are carrying?”

“Oh! my new sketch.  What do you think of it?”

“Good, very good.  Some little girl about here, I suppose?”

“Why, it is Felipa!”

“And who is Felipa?  Seems to me I have seen that old dog, though.”

“Of course you have:  he was in the boat with you, and so was Felipa, but she was dressed in boy’s clothes, and that gives her a different look.”

“Oh! that boy?  I remember him.  His name is Philip.  He is a funny little fellow,” said Edward calmly.

“Her name is Felipa, and she is not a boy or a funny little fellow at all,” I replied.

“Isn’t she?  I thought she was both,” replied Ned carelessly, and then he went off toward the hammock.  I turned away after noting Christine’s cool greeting, and went back to the boat.