-- and "lovely!" -- and "wouldn't it be
lovely to have a little boat here? -- I'll ask papa!" --

"Is it hard to row?" asked the last speaker suddenly of
Winthrop.

"No," he said, "not at all, wind and water quiet."

"Aren't they quiet to-night?"

"The tide is running down very strong. Asahel, trim the boat."

"How on earth can such a child do anything to the boat?" said
Miss Cadwallader. "What do you want done, sir?"

"Nothing," he said. "It is done."

"_What_ is done?" said the young lady, with a wondering face to
her companion. "Oh aren't you hungry?" she added with a yawn.
"I am, dreadfully. I hope we shall get a good supper."

"Whereabouts is Mr. Landholm's house?" said Elizabeth
presently. Winthrop lay on his oars to point it out to her.

"_That?_" she said, somewhat expressively.

"Then why don't you go straight there?" inquired her
companion. "You are going directly the other way."

A slight fiction; but the boat had turned into the bay, and
was following the curve of its shores, which certainly led
down deep into the land from the farmhouse point.

"I go here for the eddy."

"He is going right," said Asahel, who was sitting on the
thwart next to the ladies.

"Eddy?" said Miss Cadwallader, with a blank look at her
cousin.

"What is an eddy?" said Elizabeth.

"The return water from a point the tide strikes against."

Elizabeth eyed the water, the channel, and the _points_, and was
evidently studying the matter out.

"What a lovely place!" she said.

"I wonder if the strawberries are ripe," said Miss
Cadwallader. "Little boy, are there any strawberries in your
woods?"

"My name is Asahel," said the 'little boy' gravely.

"Is it? I am very glad indeed to know it. Are there any
strawberries in the woods here?"

"Lots of 'em," said Asahel.

"Are they ripe yet?"

"I haven't seen more than half a dozen," said Asahel.

"They are just beginning in the sunny spots," said his brother
smiling.

"And do you have anything else here besides strawberries?"

The question was put to Asahel. He looked a little blank. It
was a broad one.

"Any other fruit," said Elizabeth.

"Plenty," said Asahel.

"What?" said Miss Cadwallader; "tell us, will you; for I've
come here to live upon wild fruit."

"Yes, ma'am," said Asahel staring a little; -- "there's red
raspberries, and black raspberries, and low-bush blackberries
and high blackberries, and huckleberries, and bearberries, and
cranberries