y, and slid with pretended
caution under the great ships stationed by the Giudecca, from which they
heard sailors singing. They shot with exaggerated shivers past a slim
cruiser and suddenly Miss Dassonville clutched Peter by the arm.

"Oh!" she cried: "Do you see it? That little dark, impudent-looking one,
and _the_ flag?"

Peter saw; he was not quite, he reminded her, even in the intoxication
of a morning on the lagoons with her, quite in that state where he
couldn't see his country's flag when it was pointed out to him. They
came alongside with long strokes, and sniffed deliciously.

"Ah--um--um----" said Miss Dassonville. "I know what that is. It's ham
and eggs. How long since you've had a real American breakfast?"

"Not since I left the steamer," Peter confessed. "Now if I were to smell
hot cakes I shouldn't be able to stand it. I should go aboard her."

Miss Dassonville saluted softly as they went under the bright banner.

"'Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light,'" she began to sing and
immediately a large, blooming face rose through a mist of faded whisker
at the prow and they saw all the coast of Maine looking down on them
from the rail of the _Merrythought_.

"United States, ahoy?" it said.

They came close under and Miss Dassonville hailed in return; as soon as
the captain saw her face smiling up at him he beamed on it as the women
in the boats had done.

"We smelled your breakfast," she explained, and the man laughed
delightedly.

"I know what kind these Dagoes give ye. Come up and have some."

Peter and the girl consulted with their eyes.

"Are you going to have hot cakes?" she demanded.

"I will if you come; darned if I don't."

"We're coming, then."

It was part of the task that Peter had set himself, to persevere for
Savilla Dassonville the film of unconsciousness that lay delicately like
the bloom of a rare fruit over all that was at that moment going on in
her, that made him hasten as soon as Captain Dunham had announced
himself, to introduce her particularly by name. To forestall in the
jolly sailor the natural interpretation of their appearance together at
this hour and occasion, he had to lend himself to the only other
reasonable surmise. If they were not, as he saw it on the tip of the
good captain's tongue to propose, newly married, they were in a hopeful
way to be. The consciousness of himself as accessory to so delightful an
arrangement passed from the captain to Peter w