The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel B0082RD4EM

disappear, the lines alter almost every hour. Were you ever at the Isles of Shoals, Mr. Flemming?"
    Flemming started slightly. Since Miss Denham entered the room, he had given scarcely a thought to Lynde's dismal suspicions. Once or twice they had come into Flemming's mind, but he had promptly dismissed them. The girl's inquiry concerning a locality in New Hampshire suddenly recalled them, and recalled the motive with which Lynde had planned the dinner. Flemming flushed with vexation to think he had lent himself to the arrangement.
    "I have spent parts of two summers at the Isles of Shoals," he said.
    "Then you must have observed the singular changes that seem to take place on the mainland, seen from Appledore. The mirage on the Rye and Newcastle coasts—is it Newcastle?—sometimes does wonderful things. Frequently you see great cities stretching along the beach, some of the houses rising out of the water, as in Venice, only they are gloomy, foggy cities, like London, and not like Venice. Another time you see ships sailing by upside down; then it is a chain of hills, with peaks and projections that melt away under your eyes, leaving only the flat coast-line."
    Flemming had seen all this, and seemed again to see it through the clear medium of the young girl's words. He had witnessed similar optical illusions in the deserts, also, which he described to her. Then he remembered a curious trick of refracted light he had once seen in the sunrise on Mount Washington, and suddenly he found himself asking Miss Denham if she were acquainted with the interior of New Hampshire. Flemming had put the interrogation without a shadow of design; he could have bitten his tongue off an instant after.
    Lynde, who had been discussing with Mrs. Denham the details of the next day's journey, looked up quickly and sent Flemming a rapid scowl.
    "I have never been inland," was Miss Denham's answer. "My acquaintance with New Hampshire is limited to the Shoals and the beaches at Rye and Hampton. In visiting the Alps first I have, I know, been very impolite to the mountains and hills of my own land."
    "Ruth, dear, Mr. Lynde and I have been speaking of the conveyance for to-morrow; shall it be an open or a close carriage?"
    "An open carriage, by all means, aunt."
    "That would have its inconvenience in case of showers," said Lynde; "when April takes her departure from the Alps, she is said to leave all her capriciousness behind her. I suggest a partially closed vehicle; you will find a covering comfortable in either rain or shine."
    "Mr. Lynde thinks of everything," remarked Mrs. Denham. "He should not allow himself to be dictated to by unforeseeing woman."
    "In strict confidence, Mrs. Denham, I will confess that I have arbitrarily taken this business in hand. For nearly a week, now, I have had my eye on a vehicle that must have been built expressly for us; it is driven by a tall, distinguished person, frosty of mustache and affable of manner—evidently a French marquis in disguise."
    "What an adroit fellow Ned is!" Flemming said to himself. "I wonder that with all his cleverness he could have got such a foolish notion into his head about this girl."
    "We must have the French marquis at any cost," said Miss Denham.
    "The truth is," remarked Lynde, "I have secured him."
    "We are to start at eight, Ruth."
    "Which means breakfast at seven. Is Mr. Lynde equal to a feat like that, aunt?"
    "As I intend to have watchers and sit up all night," said Lynde, "I think I can promise to be on hand."
    This matter decided, the conversation, which had been carried on mostly in duets, became general. Flemming soon recovered from the remorse of his inadvertent question, or rather from his annoyance at the thought that possibly it had struck Lynde as having an ulterior motive.
    As to Lynde, he was in the highest humor. Miss Denham had been thoroughly charming to his friend, with her serious and candid manner—a manner as far removed from reserve as from the thin vivacity of the average young woman of the period. Her rare smile had been finer than another's laugh. Flemming himself went as near to falling in love with her and the aunt as his loyalty to Lynde and the supposed existence of a Mr. Denham permitted.
    After a while the window curtains were drawn, though it was scarcely dusk without, and candles brought; then the ices were served, and then the coffee; and then the clock on the mantelpiece, as if it took malicious satisfaction in the fleetness with which