pose the men are all out in their
boats by this time, but a person could easily rig Lantrim's little sloop
and join them; or we could camp on the marshes all day. The scent of the
pines would be heavy in this damp wind."

The captain nodded gravely and puffed in silence a while: "It's no use,
Jane," taking the pipe from his mouth. "I haven't a penny."

She sprang up, ran to a writing-desk and took out a glove-box. In it were
a pair of well-darned kid gloves and two tiny paper packages. She laid
them before him: "It's all in silver: this is for your summer hat, and
that for my shoes. What do you say, father? We are in time for the
eight-o'clock train. We should have nearly the whole day on the beach."

"Hat? What do I want with a hat? But your shoes are broken."

"They can be patched," with a gasp of delight. "Here! clear away the
work, father, while I put up a basket of dinner." She stopped by the
window, looking out: "Somebody is coming through the apple trees: I smell
a cigar. Now, remember, nothing must detain you. We can't break our
engagement."

The visitor came in sight from under the apple trees--a sombre, heavy man
in gray, the editor Neckart, to whom Mr. Waring had criticised the
Swendons with such freedom the night before. Mr. Neckart had known the
captain years ago. When he was a boy, too poor to pay for schooling, he
used to go to the captain at night for help in his Greek or mathematics.
Swendon had always preferred the companionship of younger men than
himself, and was never without a "following" of clever, unruly schoolboys,
whom he was as ready to help when they were lazy, as to tip with silver
half-dollars--when he had them. Some of them had brought young Neckart to
the captain, knowing nothing about him, except that he was miserably poor,
with a desire for knowledge which they thought insane enough. Now that
Neckart was a man, living in New York, and with very different problems to
work from those of Euclid, he had but little intercourse with the slow,
easy-going captain. They met occasionally, when Neckart came to
Philadelphia, at the club or at dinner somewhere, when there would be a
few minutes' hasty gossip about the old pranks of the boys--White, who
died in California, or Porter, who was now in the Senate--and then a shake
of the hand and good-bye, Neckart usually wondering to himself, as they
parted, how soon that fellow Laidley would cease to cumber the earth and
the captain would have his