gh tide. Ladies mostly is afeard to
be alone at sech times"--untying the yellow cotton handkerchief and
throwing his sodden hat upon the stone hearth.

"Do you think there is any danger?" asked Mrs. Smiley, embarrassed, yet
anxious. She stood in the middle of the room, behind him, with that
irresolute air an inexperienced person has in unexpected circumstances.

He turned around with his back to the blaze, while a faint mist of
evaporation began to creep out all over him, and occasionally to dart
out in slender streams and float up the wide chimney.

"There's no danger _now_, an' mebbe there won't _be_ any. But the tide
will not turn much afore midnight, an' it's higher now than it generally
is when it is full."

"What's that?" cried Willie, the boy, his senses sharpened by the
mention of danger.

"It's the wind rattlin' my boat-chains," returned Chillis, smiling at
the little fellow's startled looks.

"Your boat-chain!" echoed his mother, not less startled. "Was it your
boat that you were fastening to the hitching-post? I thought it was your
horse. Is the water up so high, then, already?"--her cheeks paling as
she spoke.

"I dragged it up a little way," returned Chillis, slowly, and turning
his face back to the fire. He was listening attentively, and thought he
caught the sound of lapping water.

"Have you just come from Astoria?" asked Mrs. Smiley, approaching, and
standing at one corner of the hearth. The fire-light shone full upon her
now, and revealed a clear white face; large, dark-gray eyes, full of
sadness and perplexity; a beautifully shaped head, coiled round and
round with heavy twists of golden hair, that glittered in its high
lights like burnished metal; and a figure at once full and lithe in its
proportions, clad in a neat-fitting dress of some soft, dark material,
set off with a tiny white collar and bright ribbon. It was easy to see
why she was the "White Rose" to the rough old mountain man. She was
looking up at him with an eager, questioning gaze, that meant, O, ever
so much more than her words.

"Not quite direct. I stopped down at the landin', an' I lost a little
time gittin' capsized in the bay. I left about three o'clock."

"Might not Eben have left a little later," the gray eyes added, "and
have been capsized, too?"

"He wouldn't _try_ to cross half an hour later--I'll wager my head on
that. He can't get away from town to-night; an', what is worse, I don't
think he can cross for two