for you, an honest name to give into your keeping,--these are all;
but if they have any worth in your eyes, they are most truly yours
forever."

Debby was steadying her voice to reply, when a troop of bathers came
shouting down the bank, and she took flight into her dressing-room,
there to sit staring at the wall, till the advent of Aunt Pen forced
her to resume the business of the hour by assuming her aquatic attire
and stealing shyly down into the surf.

Frank Evan, still pacing in the footprints they had lately made,
watched the lithe figure tripping to and fro, and, as he looked,
murmured to himself the last line of a ballad Debby sometimes sang,--

"Dance light! for my heart it lies under your feet, love!"

Presently a great wave swept Debby up, and stranded her very near him,
much to her confusion and his satisfaction. Shaking the spray out of
her eyes, she was hurrying away, when Frank said,--

"You will trip, Miss Dora; let me tie these strings for you;" and,
suiting the action to the word, he knelt down and began to fasten the
cords of her bathing shoe.

Debby stood Looking down at the tall head bent before her, with a
curious sense of wonder that a look from her could make a strong man
flush and pale, as he had done; and she was trying to concoct some
friendly speech, when Frank, still fumbling at the knots, said, very
earnestly and low,--

"Forgive me, if I am selfish in pressing for an answer; but I must go
to-morrow, and a single word will change my whole future for the better
or the worse. Won't you speak it, Dora?"

If they had been alone, Debby would have put her arms about his neck,
and said it with all her heart; but she had a presentiment that she
should cry, if her love found vent; and here forty pairs of eyes were
on them, and salt water seemed superfluous. Besides, Debby had not
breathed the air of coquetry so long without a touch of the infection;
and the love of power, that lies dormant in the meekest woman's breast,
suddenly awoke and tempted her.

"If you catch me before I reach that rock, perhaps I will say 'Yes,'"
was her unexpected answer; and before her lover caught her meaning, she
was floating leisurely away.

Frank was not in bathing-costume, and Debby never dreamed that he would
take her at her word; but she did not know the man she had to deal
with; for, taking no second thought, he flung hat and coat away, and
dashed into the sea. This gave a serious aspect to Debby's