old and
ideas for others, so many others, rising daily in my mind, I went about
watching the life of the port. Poor Dad. He was old. Could I help being
young?

Without exactly meaning to, I drew away from my father to Sue. We felt
ourselves vividly young in that house. We quarreled intensely over her
friends and were pleased with ourselves in the process. We had long
talks about ourselves. Sue let me talk to her by the hour about my work
and my ideas, while she sat and thought about her own.

"If you're planning to write up the harbor," she said sleepily late one
night, "you ought to cruise around a bit in Eleanore Dillon's motor
boat."

I looked at her in astonishment.

"Does that girl run a motor boat?"

"Her father's." Sue yawned and gave me a curious smile. "I'll see if I
can't arrange it," she said. And about a week later she told me,
"Eleanore's coming to take us out to-night."

Some of Sue's friends came to supper that evening and later we all went
down to the dock. There was no moon but the stars were out and the night
was still, the slip was dark and empty. Suddenly with a rush and a swirl
a motor boat rounded the end of the pier, turned sharply in and came
shooting toward us. A boiling of water, she seemed to rear back, then
drifted unconcernedly in to the bottom of the ladder.

In the small circle of light down there I saw Eleanore Dillon smiling
up. She sat at her wheel, a trim figure in white--a white Jersey,
something red at her throat and a soft white hat crushed a bit to one
side. Beneath it the breeze played tricks with her hair.

We scrambled down into the cock-pit. It was a deep, cozy little place,
with the wide open doors of a cabin in front, in which I caught a
glimpse of two bunks, a table, a tiny electric cooking stove and a
shaded reading light over the one small easy chair. There were impudent
curtains of blue at the port holes. There was a shelf of books and
another of blue and white cups and saucers and dishes. And what was
that? A monkey crouching under the table, paws clutching the two
enormous brass buttons on the gay blue jacket he wore, eyes watching us
angrily as he chattered.

"Buttons," commanded his mistress, "come out here this minute and stop
your noise. There's nothing for you to be peevish about, the water's
like glass. When it's rough," she explained, "he gets fearfully seasick.
Come here now, pass the cigarettes." And this her Buttons proceeded to
do--very grumpily.