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32 of the chair, got his balance, and turned toward the door. "I must go to my breakfast now," said he, inclining his curly head graciously. "Good-bye!"

"As though he expected me to disappear out the window and never be seen again!" thought Joan. "I must go to my own breakfast."

As she finished dressing she could hear his difficult progress down the steep stairs.

Mrs. Pemberley looked up from the golden cream she was skimming as Joan came to the kitchen door.

"I'm sorry that Garth burst in on you this morning," she said. "I forgot to tell him you were there. He thought you were a mermaid."

"So it seems," said Joan rather remotely. "May I help you?"

Jim Pemberley ran up from the pier just as the others sat down to breakfast.

"Good-morning, Miss Kirkland!" he cried. "There was such a nice breeze that I've just been over to the mainland and fished your trunk out of the express-office. The old baggage-master gives me anything I ask for, and I said I'd send the check over today. We might have had trouble in finding the office open later;