xpect," explained Seth. "Yes, I
hear 'Liza Loomis's voice too. You know, Miss Leicester, she used to
live up to Tideshead and sing in the Methodist choir. She's got a lovely
voice to sing. She's married down this way. They like to git together in
these scattered places, but 't is more customary up where I come from to
have them neighborhood meetin's of an afternoon." Betty watched the
small gray house with deep interest, and thought she should like to go
in. There were little children playing about the door, as if they had
been brought and left outside to amuse themselves. It was very touching
to hear the old hymn as they sailed by, and Aunt Barbara and Betty's
father looked at each other significantly as they listened. "Becky, you
ought to be there to help sing," Betty whispered, as they sat side by
side, but Becky thought it was very stupid to be having a prayer-meeting
that lovely morning.

Seth Pond had celebrated the Fourth of July by going down to Riverport
on the packet, and he had gathered much information about the river
which he was glad to give now for everybody's pleasure and
enlightenment.

"There's a bo't layin' up in that cove that's drowned two men," he said
solemnly. "There was a lady with 'em, but she was saved. I understand
they'd been drinking heavy."

Betty looked at the boat with awe where it lay with the stern under
water and the bows ashore and all warped apart. "Isn't she good for
anything?" she asked.

"Nobody'll ever touch _her_," said Seth contemptuously,--"she's drowned
two men."

But Miss Leicester smiled, and said that it appeared to have been their
own fault.

They could see into the low ruined cabin from the deck of the Starlight,
and, after they passed, the cabin port-hole seemed to watch them like an
eye until it was far astern.

"I suppose she will lie there until she breaks up in a high tide, and
then the women will gather her wreck wood to burn," said Mr. Leicester,
watching the warped mast, and Harry Foster said that no fishermen on
the river would ever touch a boat that they believed to be unlucky.
Just then they came round a point and passed a little house close by the
water, where there were flakes for drying fish and a collection of
little weather-beaten boxes shaped like roofs which were used to cover
the fish in wet weather. Betty thought they looked like a village of
baby-houses. At this moment a woman darted out of the house door,
screaming to some one inside, "I'