d, if what I've heard
since is true, I doubt if I could swim that channel. Captain Hammond
helped me out of a bad scrape."

"Oh, no! I guess not. He said you were cruising without a pilot and he
towed you into port; that's the way he expressed it."

"It was worse than that, a good deal worse. It might have been my last
cruise. I'm pretty certain that I owe the captain my life."

She looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"Your life?" she repeated.

"I believe it. That part of the channel I proposed swimming was exactly
where two men have been drowned, so people say. I'm not a very strong
swimmer, and they were. So, you see."

Grace cried out in astonishment.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. Then pointing toward the bay, she asked: "Out
there, by the end of that leader, was it?"

"Yes, that was it."

She drew a long breath. Then, after a moment:

"And Nat spoke as if it was all a joke," she said.

"No doubt he did. From what I hear of your brother, he generally refers
to his own plucky, capable actions as jokes. Other people call them
something else."

She did not answer, but continued to gaze at the half-submerged
"leader," with the pine bough tied at its landward end to mark the edge
of deep water, and the tide foaming through its lath gratings.

"Your brother--" went on the minister.

"He isn't my brother," she interrupted absently. "I wish he was."

She sighed as she uttered the last sentence.

"No, of course he isn't your real brother; I forgot. But he must seem
like one."

"Yes," rather doubtfully.

"You must be proud of him."

"I am." There was nothing doubtful this time.

"Well, he saved me from drowning. I'm almost certain of that."

"I'm so glad."

She seemed to mean it. He looked at her.

"Thank you," he said drily. "I'm rather glad myself."

"Oh! I didn't mean it exactly that way. Of course I'm glad you weren't
drowned, but I'm especially glad that--that one of our family saved you.
Now you won't believe that Come-Outers are all bad."

"I never believed it."

She shook her head.

"Oh, yes, you did," she affirmed stubbornly. "You've heard nothing good
of us since you came here. Don't tell fibs, Mr. Ellery."

"But I assure you--"

"Nonsense! Does--well, does Cap'n Daniels, or his daughter, say anything
good of us? Be honest, do they?"

"I hardly think--that is, I shouldn't call their opinions unprejudiced.
And, Miss Van Horne, perhaps the prejudice isn't all on one side. What
did your u