sently, in a bluejacket's blouse and
brief blue skirt, with a white canvas hat on her head, and a boy's old
gray jersey buttoned loosely about her, followed muffled shapes through
the cold house and into the wet, chilly garden. Richie was going, Sally
had the gallant but shivering Jane and the dark-eyed Keith by the hand,
and Barbara hung on her father's arm.

The waters of the bay were gray and cold; a sharp breeze swept their
steely surfaces into fans of ruffled water. The little Crow rocked at
her anchor, her ropes and brasswork beaded with dew. Julia, sitting in
desperate terror upon a slanting upholstered ledge, felt her teeth
chatter, and wondered why she had come.

Barbara, Sally, Richie, and their father all fell to work, and
presently, a miracle to Julia, the little boat was running toward
Richardson's Bay under a good breeze. Presently glorious sunlight
enveloped them, flashed from a thousand windows on San Francisco hills,
and struck to dazzling whiteness the breasts of the gulls that circled
Sausalito's piers. Everything sparkled and shone: the running blue water
that slapped the Crow's side, the roofs of houses on the hillside, the
green trees that nearly concealed them.

Growing every instant warmer and more content, Julia sat back and let
her whole body and soul soak in the comfort and beauty of the hour. Her
eyes roved sea and sky and encircling hills; she saw the last wisp of
mist rise and vanish from the stern silhouette of Tamalpais, and saw an
early ferryboat cut a wake of exquisite spreading lacework across the
bay. And whenever her glance crossed Sally's, or the doctor's, or
Richie's glance, she smiled like a happy child, and the Tolands smiled
back.

They all rushed into the house, ravenous and happy, for a nine o'clock
breakfast, Julia so lovely, in her borrowed clothing and with her
bright, loosened hair, that the young men of the family began, without
exception, to "show off" for her benefit, as Theodora scornfully
expressed it. And there was bacon and rolls and jam for every one, blue
bowls of cereal, glass pitchers of yellow cream, smoking hot coffee
always ready to run in an amber stream from the spout of the big silver
urn.

"And you must eat at least four waffles," said Ned, "or my father will
never let you come again! He has to drum up trade, you know--"

It was all delightful, not the less so because it was all tinged, for
Julia, with a little current of something exquisitely pain