knew we would have to go to Kauwau Island the next day and get some more, and we guessed that would be the end of it. So we made a night of it. We had a fire, and we played, and we talked about religion and our ambitions, and nerved ourselves up to face the music. And a man riding for a doctor for a sick wife heard our banjo and mandolin, for by that time the whole of New Zealand was listening for them, and he got on the telephone, and first thing in the morning we were nabbed by two jolly yachtsmen who had been hunting us for days. It was thrilling to be caught. And my, what a row we had made.”
Dane chuckled with her. “You certainly did. I remember it. But the papers made out a grand case for you, didn’t they?”
“Oh, they were beautiful, and so was dad. He had the Auckland reporters to meet us at his office soon after we got there. They read our diary, heard what we had eaten and read and said and thought, and they came out with grandiloquent stuff about the fine old spirit of the British race, and our being fired with the days of Nelson and Drake. We were the symbol of undying youth in the great empire which was safe and sound so long as there was young blood like ours to renew the spirit of our glorious ancestors. You can imagine what all that was to the relatives.”
Dane threw back his head and laughed out. “Grand old stuff. And how did they take it?”
“Well, I never did know exactly what happened in our absence. Mother was in the doctor’s hands when we returned, and I did not see her for a week. It was delicately suggested to me that I had shortened her life by some years. She is still, as you know, alive and blooming, and will probably live to put flowers on my grave. I did not see the Elegancies for at least a month. In fact, every-
