Alice! If you
and Flossie--Come, Anna. Come, Louise! Anna, bring Miss Allan;
there's acres of room yet."

Thus encouraged, another group tripped over the gang-plank and at the
same moment, those already on board, anxious to oblige Alf, who was
always obliging them, crowded over to the farther side. But so much
weight suddenly placed on one end of the scow brought dire disaster.
Without a moment's warning, down went the heavy end three feet into the
water, half submerging its shrieking passengers, and up came the light
end with the unfortunate pilot perched upon it like Hiawatha's
Adjidaumo, on the end of his Cheemaun!

Fortunately the water was not deep, and in a moment a dozen young men
had plunged in and righted the capsized craft. But there were shrieks
from all sides and threats of fainting, and dreadful anathemas heaped
upon the innocent cause of the disaster, as the bedraggled young
ladies, lately so trim, crawled back to the _Inverness_.

The catastrophe could not possibly have happened to any one whom it
would distress more than Alf. He stood in speechless dismay watching
the dripping procession pass. And when the pretty guest of the Baldwin
girls splashed past him with a look which would have been withering had
she not been so drenched, his despair was complete. He looked for a
few moments as if he were about to throw himself into the lake, then he
flung down his pole, and crept away aft to hide his diminished head
behind a pile of life-preservers. Roderick captured a row-boat, and
placed his father and Old Peter and a couple of their friends in it,
and with the huge basket Aunt Kirsty had packed for them he rowed to
shore.

When they landed, the old men seated themselves on a grassy mound under
a big elm, and the basket was snatched from Roderick's hand and whirled
away to the commissariat department in a big pavilion near at hand.

In a short time the long white tables were set beneath the trees with a
musical tinkling of cups; there was a table for the Sons themselves and
their friends, a table for the commoner folk and, farther up the shore,
here and there, little groups of friends gathered by themselves. There
was Madame seated on the ground away off at the edge of the beech
grove, like the queen of the fairies holding court. The fairies were
all there, too, seated in a wide circle, too busy to talk, as the
sandwiches and cake and pie disappeared. Roderick had not once lost
sight of Hele