Mallett laughed.  “You can set your mind at ease, for nothing is further from the thoughts of Lady Greendale than re-marriage.  She was very happy with her husband.”

“The more reason for her marrying again,” the Colonel said.  “A woman who has been happy with her husband is apt to get the idea into her head that every man will make a good husband; and a confoundedly mistaken idea it is.  She is much more likely to marry again than the woman who has had a hard time of it.”

“Well, you may be right there, Colonel, but putting aside my conviction that Lady Greendale has no idea of marrying again, is the fact that at present all her thoughts are occupied by her daughter.  She is not at all what you would call a managing mother, but I am sure that she has set her heart on Bertha’s making a good match, and that the fear that she will succumb to some penniless younger son or other unsuitable partner is at present the dominant feeling in her mind.  I don’t think she would have agreed to Jack Hawley being of the party, had not Bertha entertained a conviction that he was rather gone on Miss Sinclair, who by the way has, like her sister, money enough to disregard the fact that Jack is hardly in that respect well endowed.

“However, it is time for me to be off; I see the skipper is getting the gig lowered.  I suppose you will be content to sit here and smoke your pipe until we come back; and, indeed, seven is as many as the gig will carry with any degree of comfort.  The cutter will go ashore to fetch off the luggage, which will probably be of somewhat portentous dimensions.”

Two minutes later Mallett took his place in the gig, and was rowed to the shore.  He was delighted, with his new purchase.  She was an excellent sea boat, and, as he had learned from a short spin with another craft, decidedly fast.  He had not, however, entered her for any race.

“There is no hurry,” he said to his skipper, when the latter suggested that they should try her at Cowes.  “I should like to win my first race, and in the first place we don’t know that she is in her best trim.  In the next place we must get the crew accustomed to each other and to the craft.  I bought her as a cruiser rather than a racer, and don’t want to have her full of men, as are most of the racers.  It is a heavy expense, and fewer hands accustomed to work well together do just as much work, and more smartly than a crowd.  We found, when we sailed round the islands with the Royal Victoria race, that, considering we went under reduced canvas, we held our own very fairly; and I have no doubt that when we get all our light canvas up, the Osprey will give a good account of herself.  Our gear is scarcely stretched yet.

“No; I will wait until next season, and then we will make a bold bid for a Queen’s Cup.”

Frank Mallett reached the platform at Southampton a few minutes before the train came in.  The party were on the lookout for him, and alighted in the highest spirits.