"I should like to dress you for a garden-party, Miranda," said Miss Vavasour; "let me see now, a real summer day, such as we sometimes get in dear old England—not like this one perhaps, but very nice. A lovely old manor house like Gravenhurst or Hunsdon—such a lawn, such old trees, such a river, a marquee under an elm a hundred years old, and the county magnates marching in from their carriages."
"Oh, how delicious!" cried Miranda. "I have read such descriptions in books, but you—oh, how happy you must be to have lived it all!"
"It's very nice, but as to the happiness, that doesn't always follow," confessed the English girl with a half sigh. "I almost think you have the greater share of that. Anyhow, just as the company are assembled, I am seen walking down from the house. We are of the house party, you know, Miranda and I. She is dressed in a soft, white, embroidered muslin, very simply made, with a little, a very little Valenciennes lace. Its long straight folds hang gracefully around her matchless figure, and are confined at the waist by a broad, white moiré sash; white gloves, a white moiré parasol, a large Gainsborough hat with fleecy white feathers, and Miranda's costume is complete—the very embodiment of fresh, fair girlhood, unspotted from the world of fashion and folly."
CHAPTER XVI
A SWIM FOR LIFE
The words died on her lips as a shriek, wild, agonising, despairing, rang through the air, and startled not only the little group of pleased listeners, but all who happened to be on deck at the time. We started up and gazed towards the spot whence the cry had come. The colonel, who had been reading on the opposite side of the deck, calmly smoking the while, dropped his book and only saved his meerschaum by a cricketer's smart catch. The captain came bounding up from below, followed by the steward and his boy; the foc'sle hands, with the black cook, hurled themselves aft. All guessed the cause as they saw Mrs. Percival wringing her hands frantically and gazing at an object in the sea.
Her boy had fallen overboard! Yes! the little fellow, active and courageous beyond his years, had tried to crawl up to the shrouds while his mother's eyes were engaged in the perusal of the leading novel of the day. Weary of inaction, the poor little chap had done a little climbing on his own account, and an unexpected roll of the ship had sent him overboard. Light as the wind was, he was already a long way astern.
Long before all these observations were made, however, and while the astonished spectators were questioning their senses as to the meaning of the confusion, Miranda had sprung upon the rail, and in the next moment, with hands clasped above her head, was parting the smooth waters. Rising to the surface, she swam with rapid and powerful strokes towards the receding form of the still floating child. With less rapidity of motion, I cast myself into the heaving waste of water, not that I doubted Miranda's ability to overtake and bear up the child, but from simple inability to remain behind while all that was worth living for on earth was adrift upon the wave.