se I want
to ask her something very much."

"What is it?" inquired Bert

"It's a secret," and Freddie looked very wise and important.

A few days later Mr. and Mrs. Minturn and their daughter Dorothy came
from the seashore to pay a visit to the Bobbsey family.

Of course Bert was glad to see Dorothy, and was very nice to her, taking
his cousin and Nan down to the store to buy some ice cream. But as Bert
was a boy, and liked to play boys' games, Dorothy was better suited to
Nan and Flossie than she was to Bert.

Freddie, however, seemed to be especially pleased that his cousin from
the seashore had come on a visit. He watched his chance to have a talk
with her alone, and the first thing he asked was:

"Dorothy, do you know where I can get a ship to go sailing on the
ocean?"

"Go sailing on the ocean!" cried Dorothy. "What for, Freddie?"

"To find Tommy Todd's shipwrecked father. He wants to find him awful
bad, and I promised to help. I was going to save up to buy a ship, but
Daddy says it takes a long time. And I thought maybe as you lived near
the ocean you could get a ship for us.

"It needn't be very large, 'cause only Tommy and Flossie and Dinah, our
cook, and I will go in it. But we'd like to go soon, for Tommy's
grandmother is poor, and if we could find his father he might bring her
some money."

"Oh, you funny little boy!" cried Dorothy. "To think of going off in a
ship! I never heard of such a thing!"

"Well, we're going!" said Freddie. "So if you hear of a ship we can get
you tell me; will you, Dorothy?"

"Yes, my dear, I will. Is that what you've been trying to ask me ever
since we got here?"

"Yes. I didn't want Nan and Bert to hear. You won't tell them; will
you?"

"No, Freddie. I'll keep your secret."

But of course Dorothy knew there was no ship which so little a boy as
Freddie could get in order to go sailing across the sea. But she did not
want him to feel disappointed, and she knew better than to laugh at him.
Freddie was very much in earnest.

Dorothy Minturn spent two happy weeks with the Bobbsey twins. She and
they had many good times, and more than once Freddie asked the seashore
cousin if she had yet found a ship for him and Tommy.

At last Dorothy thought it best to tell Freddie that there were no ships
which she could get for him.

"Well, that's too bad," said Freddie, after thinking about it for
several seconds. "If I can't buy a ship, and if you can't get one for
me, Dor