Alone on their desert island, the two children faithfully carried out the programme of the day. With dry branches gathered by his mate the intrepid male soon made a fire, and retreating hurriedly to a point comfortably distant from it, they gazed upon their work. Fishing and the cleaning and cooking of their catch filled the morning; and if, indeed, the cleaning is something the mind would mercifully pass over, those chiefly concerned were satisfied and ate with prodigious appetite.
"It's awful funny," said Raymond Mortimer, comfortably, as they reposed under a tree after their repast, "but when Lily Bell an' I used to come here—"
He stopped and gazed apprehensively behind him, as if fearful that the unbidden guest was even now within hearing. Apparently reassured, he resumed: "When Lily Bell an' I used to come we 'most always went to sleep after awhile. I—we—got kind of tired talking, I guess. But when you an' I talk I don't get tired."
Margaret Hamilton flushed with delight, but an excess of maidenly modesty overcame her at the same moment.
"Why don't you?" she inquired, coyly.
"'Cos I like you better."
Margaret Hamilton gasped, sputtered, looked around her. Everything was in its place; there had been no submarine upheaval. The boy was there and he had said this thing, the full meaning of which burst suddenly upon her. Rising to her feet, she hurled herself upon him with the impetuosity of her intense nature.
"Do you really?" she gasped and gurgled. "Do you? Oh, do you? Oh, Ray,
I'm so glad!"
And she kissed him!
Disengaging himself with dignity from the clinging embrace of the maiden, the outraged youth rose to his feet.