turned in
the other direction. I would risk no more looks such as she had given me
when, in response to her father's would-be humorous suggestion, she had
offered me her "congratulations." Once, too, I saw her on the bay, I was
aboard the Comfort, having just anchored after a short cruise, and she
went by in the canoe, her newest plaything, which had arrived by freight
a few days before. A canoe in Denboro Bay was a distinct novelty;
probably not since the days of the Indians had one of the light,
graceful little vessels floated there, and this one carried much comment
among the old salts alongshore. It was the general opinion that it was
no craft for salt water.

"Them things," said Zeb Kendrick, sagely, "are all right for ponds
or rivers or cricks where there ain't no tide nor sea runnin'. Float
anywheres where there's a heavy dew, they say they will. But no darter
of mine should go out past the flats in one of 'em if I had the say.
It's too big a risk."

"Yup; well, Zeb, you ain't got the say, I cal'late," observed Thoph
Newcomb. "And it takes more'n say to get a skiff like that one. They
tell me the metal work aboard her is silver-plated--silver or gold, I
ain't sure which. Wonder the old man didn't make it solid gold while he
was about it. He'd do anything for that girl if she asked him to. And
she sartin does handle it like a bird! She went by my dory t'other
mornin' and I swan to man if she and the canoe together wan't a sight
for sore eyes. I set and watched her for twenty minutes."

"Um--ye-es," grunted Zeb. "And then you charged the twenty minutes in
against the day's work quahaugin' you was supposed to be doin' for me, I
suppose."

"You can take out the ten cents when you pay me--if you ever do," said
Newcomb, gallantly. "'Twas wuth more'n that just to look at her."

The time had been when I should have agreed with Thoph. Sitting in the
canoe, bare-headed, her hair tossing in the breeze, and her rounded arms
swinging the light paddle, she was a sight for sore eyes, doubtless.
But it was not my eyes which were sore, just then. I watched her for a
moment and then bent over my engine. I did not look up again until the
canoe had disappeared beyond the Colton wharf.

I did not tell Mother that I had sold the land. I intended to do so;
each morning I rose with my mind made up to tell her, and always I
put off the telling until some other time. I knew, of course, that she
should be told; that I ought to tell