young men call them by their first names on short acquaintance. In my
time," she added with a little sigh, "it would have been regarded as
inconsistent with maidenly reserve. I'm sure I heard the young man who
was here last night say, 'I've known you a week now; may I call you
Mabel?'"

As to young men, be it stated, the subject of this conversation showed
herself impartially indifferent. Her attitude seemed to be that boys
were good fellows as well as girls, and should be encouraged
accordingly. If they chose to make embarrassing speeches regarding
one's personal appearance and to try to be alone with one as much as
possible, while such favoritism was rather a fillip to existence, it
was to be considered at bottom as an excellent joke. Young men came
and young men went. Mabel attracted her due share. Yet evidently she
seemed to be as glad to see the last comer as any of his predecessors.

Then occurred the second happening in the tranquil existence of the
maiden ladies. One day at the end of the first summer, an easterly
day, when the sky was beginning to be obscured by scud and the sea was
swelling with the approach of a storm, Dan Anderson, the only son of
his father, was knocked overboard by the boom while showing the heels
of his thirty-foot knockabout to the hired boat of his neighbor, Miss
Mabel Ripley. They were not racing, for his craft was unusually fast,
as became a multi-millionaire's plaything. Besides, he and the girl
had merely a bowing acquaintance. The _Firefly_ was simply
bobbing along on the same tack as the _Enchantress_, while the
fair skipper, who had another girl as a companion, tried vainly, at a
respectful distance, to hold her own by skill.

The headway on Dan's yacht was so great that before the two dazed