After their consultation, the shore people had evidently decided there
was nothing to be done for the shipwrecked mariner and her exiled
companions, as presently every one went into the house.

"Think of the soup and roast beef they're devouring!" sighed Eunice,
with a thrill of envy,--but she stood fast to her resolution not to eat
luncheon till Cricket could have some, too.

Fortunately, there was no special danger for Cricket, unless she
actually tumbled out of the boat into the deep, soft mud, which she
could scarcely do, unless she deliberately jumped out, so securely was
the boat held. So the time went on, and Eunice and Edna, after a while,
submitted to the inevitable, and resumed work and reading, stopping now
and then to look towards Cricket, and call out sympathizing messages.

"Isn't--it--nice--I'm--near--enough--to--talk--to--you?" called back
this little Mark Tapley once.

"Are--you--_very_--hungry?" shouted Eunice, after a long lapse in this
high-keyed conversation. But there was no answer, and, looking again,
they saw that Cricket's head was down on her arm, which was stretched
out over the seat.

"She's actually gone to sleep!" said Eunice, in amazement. "Well, I
never knew Cricket to go to sleep in the daytime before in her life."

"I should think she'd do anything for variety," returned Edna. "If this
isn't the longest day that ever was! I should think it was to-morrow
morning. It's worse than that day last summer when we went
blackberrying and came home at ten in the morning, thinking it was six.
Do you remember?"

"I should think I did! I never had a chance to forget it," answered
Eunice, "between papa and Donald. I suppose it _was_ funny to them, but
I never could see how the time seems so long to us."

"Oh, look, look!" cried Edna, suddenly. "Do you see that little ripple
where the water lies in the channel? The tide is turning at last. In an
hour or so, now, the water will be high enough for Cricket to get over
here at least,--though we can't get home for a long time yet."

If the time had dragged before, this last hour fairly crawled. Eagerly
the girls watched the strengthening ripples and the eddying current in
the channel, as the water slowly crept higher in the outer bay. Slowly
the brown ooze became a smooth, even, brown paste, and then, a few
minutes later, the usual transformation scene took place. The bay was so
protected by the long arm of land that half surrounded it that there