f by washing salt water over them to see
them open their tiny cups of shell. In the pool itself a beautiful
lavender-colored jelly-fish was floating about, and just beyond lay a
star-fish clinging to a bunch of seaweed. She found other treasures
scattered about by the largess of the tide--tiny spiral shells, stones
of all colors, and a horseshoe crab, besides seaweed with pretty
little pods which popped delightfully when she squeezed them with her
fingers. Then she heard the cries of gulls overhead and watched them
as they wheeled and circled between her and the sky. When they flew
out to sea she sat with her hands clasping her knees and gazed across
the bay at the three hills of Boston town. She could see quite plainly
the tall beacon standing like a ship's mast on top of Beacon Hill, and
farther north she strained her eyes to pick out Governor Winthrop's
dwelling from the cluster of houses which straggled up the slope of
Copp's Hill and which made all there was of the city of Boston in that
early day.

[Illustration]

For some time she sat there hugging her knees and thinking long, long
thoughts, and it was not until the sound of little waves lapping
against the rocks roused her that she woke from her day dream and
realized with terror that the tide had turned. The channels and lower
levels of the bay were already brimming over, and the water was deep
about the rocks on which she perched. At almost the same moment Dan
had been surprised by a cold wave which washed over his bare feet,
and, turning about, was dismayed to find a sheet of blue water
covering the bay and to see Nancy standing on the topmost rock
shouting "Dan! Dan!" at the top of her lungs. For one astonished
instant he looked at her, then, throwing down his shovel, he plunged
unhesitatingly into the icy bath. And now Nancy, realizing that there
was not a moment to lose if she hoped to reach the shore in safety,
let herself slowly down off the rocks, leaving the basket behind her,
and started toward her brother.

The water was already so deep in the channels that their progress
toward each other was slow, but they ploughed bravely on, feeling the
bottom carefully at each step lest they sink in some sand-pocket or
hollow washed out by the tide. Some distance away toward Charlestown
a fishing schooner rocked on the deeper water of the bay, and a
fisherman in a small boat, attracted by the shouting, looked up, and,
seeing the two struggling figures, insta