h nice shoes, I'd go
barefooted, and then we could both sit on the same seat and let the water
come in, while I use one oar and you the other; or"--her face suddenly
glowing with a brilliant idea--"we could both wear our bathing-suits!"

"Yes," returned the broker, "I think if you were to row we might need
them."

The child laughed.

"No, Jewel, no; we'd better bathe when we bathe, and row when we row, and
not mix them. You couldn't do anything with even one of those clumsy oars
in that tub of a boat."

As Mr. Evringham said this, he saw the disappointment in the little girl's
face as she looked straight ahead, and noted, too, her effort to conquer
it.

"Well, I do have so many happinesses," she replied.

"It will be a grand sight at the beach this morning, with the sunlight on
the stormy waves," said Mr. Evringham. "The water-baby will have to keep
out of them, though."

Jewel lifted her shoulders and looked at him. "Then we ought to row over,
don't you think so?"

"You're not willing to be a thorough-going land lubber, are you?" returned
the broker.

"No," Jewel sighed. "I'd rather bail than keep off the pond. Oh, but I
forgot," with a sudden thought, "mother'd get wet if she rowed over and it
would be too bad to make her walk through the fields alone."

There was a little silence and then Mr. Evringham turned the horses into
the homeward way.

"I begin to feel as if breakfast would be acceptable, Jewel. How is it with
you?"

"Why, I could eat"--began the child hungrily, "I could eat"--

"Eggs?" suggested the broker, as she paused to think of something
sufficiently inedible.

"Almost," returned the child seriously. Another pause, and then she
continued. "Grandpa, wouldn't it be nice if mother had somebody to play
with, too, so we could go out in the boat whenever we wanted to?"

"Yes. Why doesn't your father hurry up his affairs?"

Jewel looked at the broker. "He has. He thought it was error for him not to
let the people there know that he was going to leave them after a while; so
they began right off to try to find somebody else, and they have already."

"Eh?" asked the broker. "Your father is through in Chicago, then? When did
you hear that?"

"Mother had the letter yesterday and she told me when I went to bed last
night."

"Why, then he'll be coming right on."

"We'd like to have him," returned Jewel; "but mother wasn't sure how you
would feel about it, to have father here so long before