ear. As
for Harry Foster and Seth, they had already gone down to the shore.

On the wide sofa in the hall was a funny old-fashioned leather satchel
with a strong strap-handle. It seemed full to overflowing, and beside it
lay a warm shawl neatly folded, and, not to make too long a story, Aunt
Barbara's third-best bonnet was close at hand, and these were her
provisions for spending the day on the river. Mr. Leicester had insisted
that she should go with them, and that if she found it tiresome there
was nothing to prevent her coming back by train from Riverport in the
afternoon. Aunt Barbara felt as if she were being a little adventurous,
and packed her small portmanteau with a secret foreboding that she might
be kept out over night; still she had always been very fond of boating,
and had seen almost none of it for many years, in fact since Betty's
father had been at home sometimes, in his college vacations. There was a
fine breeze blowing already in the elms and making the tall hollyhocks
bow in the garden, and when they reached the wharf and put down the
creaking wicker basket on the very edge the tide was still high, and
Harry Foster had already hoisted the Starlight's sail with one careful
reef in it, and was waiting to row them out two at a time in the
tag-boat. Nelly Foster could not go, as she and her mother were very
busy that day, but Harry's face looked brighter than Betty had ever seen
it, and she was sure that papa must have been very good, and, to use a
favorite phrase of his, opened a new gate for him. Mary Beck was
strangely full of fears, considering that she was the granddaughter of a
brave old sailor; but after she was out of the unsteady smaller boat,
and had been decoyed by Betty to the bows of the Starlight, and shown
how to stow herself away so that she hindered neither jib nor boom, she
began to enjoy herself highly. Aunt Barbara sat under her every-day
parasol, looking quite elegant and unseaworthy, but very happy. Harry
Foster was steering just beside her, and Mr. Leicester, with Seth's
assistance, was shaking out the reef; for the wind was quieter just now,
and they wished to get farther down river as soon as possible, since
here, where the banks were often high and wooded and the stream narrow,
it was gusty and uncertain sailing for so large a boat. They slipped
down fast with the wind and tide, and passed the packet, which had
started out ahead of them. She carried an unusual number of passengers