to three miles about Fairchild's double
island. Wherefore the indulgent Gilmores, on Ramsey's pleading, elected
to coach first the brother and sister--of Napoleon--letting Hugh ascend
to the starlight of the roof and Ramsey follow attended once more by old
Joy.

She met Hugh at the foot of the pilot-house steps. "We are postponed!"
she said, "you and me--I!"

"Yes. Do you know for what?"

"Yes, because those other two parts are so much bigger than ours, and
because--I d'n' know--I believe they think I'm sleepy--ha, ha! I'm glad,
for _I_ want to study this _river_, all I can, day and night. And
you--must, mustn't you?"

"Yes," he said, which was all he was to say in the play.

Half-way up the steps she halted: "You're to be a captain on it yourself
as soon as you're fit, ain't you?"

"If that time ever comes."

"Phew! how modest" She stared an instant, turned her back, clasped the
rail, and with her forehead on her arms laughed till Hugh was weary--not
necessarily long.

He spoke: "Here come the _Westwood_ and the _Antelope_."

"Where?" She glanced round, sprang up the steps, and soon was making
room for him beside her at a larboard window behind Watson. Looking
thence across the long, slim neck of Cole's Point they saw the two boats
coming back westward in the upper reach of the fourteen-mile eastern
loop they were running to make two miles into the north. Now the
_Westwood_ passed and now the _Antelope_, their skylights glinting like
fireflies through the intervening tree tops, and Watson showed how to
tell them apart by night. Presently they turned north again and
vanished, leaving the mighty stream to its three students.

"It'll cut off this whole fourteen mile' some day," said Watson; but the
other two, in their dim nook, remained silent. He knew that sort of
silence. When Ramsey by and by spoke, her words were to Hugh exclusively
and in undertone.

"The _Quakeress_--Oh, I didn't mean----!"

"That's all right," said Hugh. "The _Quakeress_----!"

"Oh, I meant the _Antelope_! She'll soon be in the lead again?"

"Yes."

"With both those letters."

"Both."

"Ain't you glad I didn't mean the _Quakeress_?"

"No."

"Well, you're glad I didn't mean Phyllis, ain't you?"

"No."

"Would you really be willing to tell me about Phyllis?"

"I would."

"You wasn't willing--before--was you?--were you?"

"No."

"What's changed your mind?"

"Lawd, missy!" sighed the forgotten Joy.

But Ramsey in