and that couldn't be hurt."

"No, indeed!" said Lettie; "I couldn't wear any one's dress, and if
that gets spoiled--why, I'll have to get another," she added proudly,
though she knew in her heart that her mother could not afford another,
that season.

"Well," said Stella, "you must of course do as you choose."

The boating party consisted, besides Stella and Lettie, and Stella's
cousin Maud, of Stella's brother and two of his friends. These two
young men it was to whom Lettie's mother had objected. They were
rather wild fellows, sons of rich men, and not obliged to do anything,
given up to sports and rather noisy pranks in the city. They were
intimate with Stella's brother, who was one of their kind also.

The moon rose about nine o'clock that evening, and at that hour the
gay party took their way to the little boathouse, where they embarked
in a small sailboat which was waiting for them.

The young men understood the management of a boat, and for a time all
went well. They talked and laughed and sang, and enjoyed the moonlight
and the rapid motion, and Lettie thought she never had such a lovely
time in her life.

After awhile the spirit of teasing began to show itself among the
boys. They liked to frighten the girls, as thoughtless boys often do,
and after such harmless pranks as spattering water over them, to hear
their little screams of protest, they fell to the more dangerous, but
very common, play of rocking the boat, threatening to upset it.

The girls, resolved not to be frightened, for a long time did not cry
out, and this drew the boys on to greater exertions, determined to
make them scream and beg. At last the thing happened that so often
does happen to reckless boys,--a sudden puff of wind caught the sail,
the boat lurched, and in a moment the whole party were struggling in
the water.

Thoroughly frightened now, the boys, who could all swim, at first
struck out for the shore, which was at some distance. Then, recalled
to their senses by the cries of the girls, two of them turned back to
their aid. Whether they would have reached the shore with their
frightened and unmanageable burdens is uncertain, but, a tugboat
happening to come along, they were all picked up and carried to a dock
a mile or more below.

There, after waiting a half hour, drenched and chilled all through,
while the boys tried in vain to get a carriage,--for by this time it
was very late,--the party took a street car, which carried