----"

"The hearth," suggested Julia.

"Hearth on the sea!" cried Margaret in scorn.

"I'll fine the next girl who interrupts," announced Captain Mae. "Go on,
Maggie."

"I'll skip the introduction, I have to," Margaret admitted, struggling
with a laugh, "but I know these lines:

"It was on the Spanish Main----

"And in a night of rain--then I have to skip again, but you will
understand the story," braved Margaret. "The sailors saw something, I
just have to insert that clause," she contributed, "then it goes:

* * * * *

"So far from any coast, we thought it was a ghost,
And lowers a boat to see what it might be,
Where on its mother's breast a little one did rest,
The mother dead--the babe alive and well!"

* * * * *

"Oh, just like Kitty's story," interrupted Cleo in spite of orders.

"Certainly, that's the reason I'm suffering so to tell it," admitted
Margaret.

"Does the song say what they did with the little one?" asked Julia,
always intensely sympathetic.

"Yes, listen," again ordered Margaret. "The story tells:

"Now we're a rough old set, some are fathers, don't forget,"

"But--but I can't think of that line, I should have told you 'Our
skipper seized the boy, and kisses him with joy----'"

This was almost the end for Margaret, if not the end of the song, for
they all seized the girl and smothered her with kisses.

"But it was a lovely story, Margy, if bald in spots," commented Cleo.
"What's the chorus?"

Again Margaret started, this time in tune:

* * * * *

"Singing eylie--heevie ho!
Eylie heevie ho!
Send the wheel around say we!
While gayly blows the breeze,
That takes us o'er the seas!
Singing eylie, heevie, eylie heevie ho!"

* * * * *

"Hurrah! Hurray! Hurroo!" called Louise. "That's all right for a sea
story, Margaret, and we'll have to make a line of it in our Log. But
poor little Kitty didn't fare so well. See it was a boy, 'they kissed
him with joy,'" she explained. "Being a girl poor Kitty was just
dumped."

"Oh, yes, one more line," persisted Margaret:

"Then we names him Little Jack, and kissing he don't lack!"

Needless to say what happened to Margaret at that!

Then, to give the Westbrook girls the full benefit of their information,
th