d have felt much like waving my hat.

[Illustration: "THE GENTLEMAN WAVED HIS HAT TO US."]

Menendez now said that he had an oil-skin coat stowed away forward, and
I got it and put it around the girl. She snuggled herself up in it as
comfortably as she could, and began to talk.

"The way of it was this," she said. "Father, he said we'd go out
sailing, and mother and I went with him, and when we got down to the
wharf, there were a lot of boats, but they all had men to them, and so
father, he said he wanted to sail the boat himself, and mother, she said
that if he did she wouldn't go; but he said pooh! he could do it as well
as anybody, and wasn't going to have any man. So he got a boat without a
man, and mother, she didn't want me to go; but I went, and he stuck fast
coming back, because he never will listen to anything anybody tells him,
as mother and I found out long ago. And here we are, almost at the
wharf! I didn't think we were anywhere near it."

"Well, you see, sis, sich a steady gale o' talkin', right behind the
sail, is bound to hurry the boat along. And now, s'pose you tell us your
name," said Menendez.

"My name's Cornelia; but father, he calls me Corny, which mother hates
to hear the very sound of," said she; "and the rest of it is Mary
Chipperton. Father, he came down here because he had a weak lung, and
I'm sure I don't see what good it's going to do him to sit out there in
the rain. We'll take a man next time. And father and I'll be sure to be
here early to-morrow to go out fishing with you. Good-bye!"

And with this, having mounted the steps to the pier, off ran Miss
Corny.

"I wouldn't like to be the ole man o' that family," said Mr. Menendez.

That night, after we had gone to bed, Rectus began to talk. We generally
went to sleep in pretty short order; but the moon did not shine in our
windows now until quite late, and so we noticed for the first time the
curious way in which the light-house--which stood almost opposite on
Anastasia Island--brightened up the room, every minute or two. It is a
revolving light, and when the light got on the landward side it gave us
a flash, which produced a very queer effect on the furniture, and on
Rectus's broad hat, which hung on the wall right opposite the window. It
seemed exactly as if this hat was a sort of portable sun of a very mild
power, which warmed up, every now and then, and lighted the room.

But Rectus did not talk long about this.

"I think," s