"Oh!"
"But that is not so very difficult"
"How do you do it?"
"Would you like to know?"
"Very much indeed. I should like to see, if I may."
The lady reflected a moment. "I suppose you may, but if you do, you
ought to help me, don't you think?" The gentleman much amused and
greatly interested.
"Ah but you see, it is you I want to see make it. I am very useless
you know at that sort of thing, still, if you will allow me, I will
try my best. Am I to come ashore?"
"Certainly, if you are to be of any use."
The lady jumped lightly off the pretty couch of moss and wound her
plentiful hair round her head with one turn of her arm. Her dress
was creased but well-fitting, her figure not plump enough for beauty
but decidedly youthful. She watched her new friend moor his boat and
ascend with one or two strides of his long legs up the side of the
cliff that was not so steep. He took off his hat.
"I am at your service," he said with a profound bow. The lady made
him another, during which all her long hair fell about her again, at
which they both laughed.
"What do we do first?" said he.
"O we find a lot of sticks and pieces of bark, mostly birch bark,
and anything else that will burn--you may have to fell a tree while
you are about it--and I'll show you how to place them properly
between two walls of stones, put a match to them and there is our
fire. Will you come with me?"
He assented of course, and they were soon busy in the interior of
the little wood that grew up towards the centre of the island. I
must digress here to say that the gentleman's name was Amherst. He
was known to the world in latter life as Admiral Amherst, and he was
a great friend of mine. When he related this story to me, he was
very particular in describing the island as I have done--indeed he
carried a little chart about with him of it which he had made from
memory, and he told me besides that he never forgot the peculiar
beauty of that same little tract of wood. The early hour, the
delicious morning air, the great moss-grown and brown decaying tree
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