I go to the bottom!"

A great splashing arose, and when Evan recovered the use of his eyes,
the pagoda-hat had taken a sudden turn, and seemed making for the
farthest point of the goal. "I am sure of her now," thought Frank; and,
like a gallant sea-god, he bore down upon his prize, clutching it with a
shout of triumph. But the hat was empty, and like a mocking echo came
Debby's laugh, as she climbed, exhausted, to a cranny in the rock.

"A very neat thing, by Jove! Deuse take me if you a'n't 'an honor to
your teacher, and a terror to the foe,' Miss Wilder," cried Mr. Joe, as
he came up from a solitary cruise and dropped anchor at her side. "Here,
bring along the hat, Evan; I'm going to crown the victor with
appropriate what-d'-ye-call-'ems," he continued, pulling a handful of
sea-weed that looked like well-boiled greens.

Frank came up, smiling; but his lips were white, and in his eye a look
Debby could not meet; so, being full of remorse, she naturally assumed
an air of gayety, and began to sing the merriest air she knew, merely
because she longed to throw herself upon the stones and cry violently.

"It was 'most as exciting as a regatta, and you pulled well, Evan; but
you had too much ballast aboard, and Miss Wilder ran up false colors
just in time to save her ship. What was the wager?" asked the lively
Joseph, complacently surveying his marine millinery, which would have
scandalized a fashionable mermaid.

"Only a trifle," answered Debby, knotting up her braids with a
revengeful jerk.

"It's taken the wind out of your sails, I fancy, Evan, for you look
immensely Byronic with the starch minus in your collar and your hair in
a poetic toss. Come, I'll try a race with you; and Miss Wilder will
dance all the evening with the winner. Bless the man, what's he doing
down there? Burying sunfish, hey?"

Frank had been sitting below them on a narrow strip of sand, absently
piling up a little mound that bore some likeness to a grave. As his
companion spoke, he looked at it, and a sudden flush of feeling swept
across his face, as he replied,--

"No, only a dead hope."

"Deuse take it, yes, a good many of that sort of craft founder in these
waters, as I know to my sorrow"; and, sighing tragically, Mr. Joe turned
to help Debby from her perch, but she had glided silently into the sea,
and was gone.

For the next four hours the poor girl suffered the sharpest pain she had
ever known; for now she clearly saw the strait he