It would be most kind of you."
She looked sideways at the motor, sideways at the water, sideways at Mr.
Carr.
It was a very lovely morning in early June.
As Mr. Carr handed her into the rowboat with ceremony she swept him a
courtesy. Her apron and manners were charmingly incongruous.
When she was gracefully seated in the stern Mr. Carr turned for a moment,
stared all Oyster Bay calmly in the face through his monocle, then,
untying the painter, fairly skipped into the boat with a step distinctly
frolicsome.
"It's curious how I feel about this," he observed, digging both oars into
the water.
"_How_ do you feel, Mr. Carr?"
"Like a bird," he said softly.
And the boat moved off gently through the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay.
At that same moment, also, the sparkling waters of Oyster Bay were gently
caressing the classic contours of Cooper's Bluff, and upon that
monumental headland, seated under sketching umbrellas, Flavilla and
Drusilla worked, in a puddle of water colors; and John Chillingham Yates,
in becoming white flannels and lilac tie and hosiery, lay on the sod and
looked at Drusilla.
Silence, delicately accented by the faint harmony of mosquitoes, brooded
over Cooper's Bluff.
"There's no use," said Drusilla at last; "one can draw a landscape from
every point of view except looking _down_ hill. Mr. Yates, how on earth
am I to sit here and make a drawing looking down hill?"
"Perhaps," he said, "I had better hold your pencil again.
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