!" returned the boatman's daughter. But she gave
Bess her hand. "You make too much of what I did. And I don't want to
seem mean--and ungrateful.

"But, truly, you can do nothing for me. No, Mr. Lavine; there is nothing
I could accept. You have wronged my father----"

He put up his hand in denial, but she went on to say:

"At least, _I_ believe so. You can do nothing for me. I would be
glad if you would right the wrong you did him so long ago; but I do not
want you to do _that_ in payment for anything I may have done for
Miss Bessie.

"No, sir. Right my father's wrong because it _is_ a wrong and
because you realize it to be such--that you were mistaken----"

"I do not see that," Mr. Lavine returned, stiffly.

"Then there is nothing more to be said," declared Polly, and with a
quick flirt of her paddle, she drove her birchbark out of the huddle of
other canoes and, in half a minute, was out of earshot.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE REGATTA

The late July morning that broke upon the scene of the last preparations
for Honotonka regatta promised as fine a day as heart could wish.

There was a good breeze from early morning. This was fine for the
catboat races and for the sailing canoes. Yet the breeze was not too
strong, and there was not much "sea." This latter fact made the paddling
less difficult.

The camps on Gannet Island and at Green Knoll were deserted soon after
breakfast. The Busters took their canoes aboard the _Happy Day_,
while Mr. Lavine's launch, the _Sissy Radcliffe_, carried the
girls' canoes as well as the girls themselves.

They were two merry boatloads, and the boats themselves were strung with
banners and pennants. As they shot up the sunlit lake they sighted many
other craft headed toward Braisely Park, for some contestants had come
from as far away as the Forge, at the head of the Wintinooski.

Suddenly Wyn, looking through the camp spyglass, recognized the patched
sail of the _Coquette_, the little catboat in which Polly Jarley
had come to the rescue of the two members of the Go-Ahead Club on that
memorable day.

"Polly is aboard," she told Frank Cameron, passing the glass to her
friend. "But who is the boy with her?"

"That's no boy!" declared the sharp-eyed Frankie. "Why! he's got a
mustache."

"It's never Mr. Jarley himself?" exclaimed Wyn, in surprise.

"That's exactly who it is."

"I didn't think they'd both leave the landing at the same time. Do you
suppose they have entere