perhaps, but with all my crimps out, how can
you have the heart? If ever I get ashore alive,--"

"Don't be ridiculous, Viola!" said the lad, in a tone of brotherly
tolerance. "You are in no more danger--now--then if you were in bed.
Though I admit it might have been rather fussy if we hadn't met you!" he
added, with a meaning look at Phil.

"How far have you to go?" asked Phil. "Buffum's Point? Well, now, look
here! that will be a long, hard pull against this wind. You'd much
better let us tow you down to our camp, and then you can ship a new
rudder, and go home any old time when the wind sets right."

The young man hesitated. "Why--you're awfully good," he said, "but I
think we'd better get home--"

"Oh, do, _do_ let us go, Tom!" cried the pretty girl who had waved the
handkerchief, and who seemed still, somehow, to be waving everything
about her. "No, I won't be quiet! It's my Veezy Vee, I tell you; it's
Peggy Montfort, and I am simply expiring to talk to her. Besides, if I
am going to be drowned, I want to be drowned with another girl. Oh,
Peggy, isn't it dreadful? Do you think we shall ever get home alive?"

Here the wind caught her hat, and in a frantic effort to retain it, she
very nearly fell overboard. "There!" she cried. "I told you so, Tommy; I
knew I should be drowned."

"I never said you wouldn't," replied her brother, with some heat, "if
you play such pranks as that. You simply _must_ sit still, Vi!"

"Oh, it's all very well to say I must sit still, Tommy Vincent. If _you_
had a hat that was the pride of your life, instead of a felt saucepan,
perhaps you wouldn't want to have it carried off and drowned before your
eyes. My precious hatty!"

"Why, we are all right, Viola," said Peggy. "It is perfectly splendid, I
think. Besides, the worst of it is past. Look! the sky is lightening
already; the whole thing will be over soon."

"But I am drenched to the skin!" cried poor Viola. "The rain has gone
through and wet my poor bones, I know it has; I shall _never_ be dry
again, I am convinced, never: there isn't a school-book in the world dry
enough to dry me, Peggy, not even Hallam's 'Middle Ages.'"

"Pooh! who cares for a wetting?" said Peggy, shaking herself like a
Newfoundland dog. "It only adds to the fun."

"Oh! that's all very well for you, Veezy Vee!" cried poor Viola. "But if
_you_ had on a silk waist, you would feel differently, I know you
would. And my hat simply _was_ the sweetest thing you ev