above and Ramsey sprang to an elbow
to watch its swift approach and await her own boat's passing call and
the other's reply. Now the _Votaress_ tolled a single stroke, as if to
cry: "Hail, friend, we take the starboard."

With bird-like speed the shining apparition came on, and after a few
seconds--that seemed endless--its soft, slow note of assent floated over
the waters. Crossing the star's slender path on a long oblique, the
wonder came, came on, came close, glittered by, and was gone; now
lowland and flood lay again in mystic shadows, and the heavenly beacon
of dawn, shedding a yet more unearthly glory than before, swung nearer
and nearer to the _Votaress's_ course until it vanished forward of the
great wheel-house as she headed northeast.

The very pilot at the helm was not more awake than the reclining Ramsey
as she pondered the hours, each one a year, that had passed since she
came aboard. All their happenings, dark and bright; all their speeches;
all their faces, male, female, aged, adolescent, juvenile, danced
through her fancy with a variety and multiplicity of values which seven
such little country-girl minds as hers, thought she, could hardly make
room for. It seemed as though a shower of coined gold were overflowing
her wee muslin apron of an intelligence and dropping through it. She
could scarcely remain in the berth. Listen! Was her mother awake, in the
lower one? The boat veered a trifle back northward and suddenly again,
hovering over dim water and shore and blazing like a herald angel, was
the morning star, a scant point or so to "stabboard." She chuckled,
softly, at the word.

Gently her name was called, beneath her: "Ramsey?"

She let her face into the pillow and shook with the fun of it. If she
should squeak half a note of reply she would be ordered to stay abed.
Soon the mother rose and began stealthily to dress. No doubt it was to
return to those poor Germans below. The thought was very sobering.
Ramsey yearned to go with her, but knew she might as well ask leave to
ride in the white yawl which, night and day, so incessantly, invitingly
skimmed, zigzagged, foamed, and bounded after the _Votaress_, holding on
to her fantail by its jerking painter.

The yawl reminded her of the boy Hugh. He seemed to belong to
the boat in much the same way as it. He _was_ a boy, nothing
else--humph!--pooh!--though he seemed to think himself the elephant of
the show. A boy, and yet with what a mind! Not that sh