ase."

The boy made half a dozen circular, jabbing strokes, and the skiff
zigzagged out from the float. It was a fine blue day, cool as a
cucumber, and across the river from the deserted shipyards, where, upon
lofty beamings, stood all sorts of ships in all stages of composition,
the frequent beeches and maples showed pink and red and yellow against
the evergreen pines.

"It's easy 'nough," said Aladdin. And Margaret agreed in her mind, for
it is the splash of deeds rather than the skill or power which impresses
a lady. The little lady sat primly in the stern, her mitted paws folded;
her eyes, innocent and immense, fastened admiringly upon the rowing boy.

"Only 'bout's far's the cat-boat, 'Laddin, please," she said. "I
oughtn't to of come 't all."

Somehow the cat-boat, anchored fifty yards out and straining back from
her moorings, would not allow herself to be approached. For although
Aladdin maintained a proper direction (at times), the ocean tide,
setting rigidly in and overbearing the current of the river, was
beginning to carry the skiff to some haven where she would not be.

Aladdin saw this and tried to go back, catching many crabs in the
earnestness of his endeavor. Then the little girl, without being told,
perceived that matters were not entirely in the hands of man, and began
to look wistfully from Aladdin to the shore. After a while he stopped
grinning, and then rowing.

"Can't you get back, 'Laddin?" said the little girl.

"No," said the boy, "I can't." He was all angel now, for he was being
visited for wrong.

The little girl's lips trembled and got white.

"I'm awful sorry, Margaret."

"What'll we do, 'Laddin?"

"Just sit still, 'n' whatever happens I'll take care of you, Margaret."

They were passing the shipyards with a steady sweep, but the offices
were closed, the men at home, and no one saw the distressed expedition.
The last yard of all was conspicuous by a three-master, finished,
painted, sparred, ready for the fragrant bottle to be cracked on her
nose, and the long shivering slide into the river. Then came a fine
square, chimneyed house with sherry-glass-shaped elm-trees about it. The
boy shouted to a man contorted under a load of wood. The man looked up
and grinned vacantly, for he was not even half-witted. And they were
swept on. Presently woods drew between them and the last traces of
habitation,--gorgeous woods with intense splashes of color, standing
upon clean rocks that empha