ations at her uncle's, and the many rudenesses of Joe Hart and
his brother Fuz.

"They ought to be drowned," said Ford.

"In ink," added Annie; "just as they drowned my poor cuffs and collars."

CHAPTER X.

"Look at Dabney Kinzer," whispered Jenny Walters to her mother, in
church, the next morning. "Did you ever see anybody's hair as smooth as
that?"

And smooth it was, certainly; and he looked, all over, as if he had
given all the care in the world to his personal appearance. How was
Annie Foster to guess that he had got himself up so unusually on her
account? She did not guess it; but when she met him at the church door,
after service, she was careful to address him as "Mr. Kinzer," and that
made poor Dabney blush to his very eyes.

"There!" he exclaimed; "I know it."

"Know what?" asked Annie.

"Know what you're thinking."

"Do you, indeed?"

"Yes, you think I'm like the crabs."

"What _do_ you mean?"

[Illustration: GOING THROUGH THE BREAKERS. [SEE PAGE 683.]]

"You think I was green enough till you spoke to me, and now I'm boiled
red in the face."

Annie could not help laughing,--a little, quiet, Sunday morning sort of
a laugh,--but she was beginning to think her brother's friend was not a
bad specimen of a Long Island "country boy." Ford, indeed, had come
home, the previous evening, from a long conference with Dab, brimful of
the proposed yachting cruise, and his father had freely given his
consent, much against the will of Mrs. Foster.

"My dear," said the lawyer, "I feel sure a woman of Mrs. Kinzer's good
sense would not permit her son to go out in that way if she did not feel
safe about him. He's been brought up to it, you know, and so has the
colored boy who is to go with them."

"Yes, mother," argued Ford, "there isn't half the danger there is in
driving around New York in a carriage."

"There might be a storm."

"The horses might run away."

"Or you might upset."

"So might a carriage."

But the end of it all was that Ford was to go, and Annie was more than
half sorry she could not go with him. She said so to Dabney, as soon as
her little laugh was ended, that Sunday morning.

"Some time or other, I'd be glad to have you," replied Dab, "but not
this trip."

"Why not?"

"We mean to go right across the bay and try some fishing."

"Couldn't I fish?"

"Well, no. I don't think you could."

"Why couldn't I?"

"Because,--well, because you'd most likely be too sea-sick by th