suddenly discovered that he wanted to look over the bow, too. A
minute later he was leaning on the rail behind the girl, looking
down upon a school of porpoises, or herring hogs, which were playing
about the boat. A jet of water and spray curled upward from the
cutwater of the steamer, which was running at high speed, but the
graceful little creatures kept abreast of her without apparent
effort. There were twenty or thirty of them, gliding in and out as
gracefully as if they were moving to the measure of a waltz.
Sometimes one touched the prow or side of the boat; usually they
kept pace with the steamer as evenly as if they were a part of it;
but occasionally one darted ahead at a speed which left the boat
behind as if it were standing still. At last the girl, long
conscious that some one was standing beside her, putting out her
hand to that somebody, said:

"Aren't they dears? Oh!" she added, as her hand was taken and she
looked around, "I thought it was Daddy. Please excuse me."

Dick looked as if he might be persuaded to forgive her, and for some
minutes they stood in silence, leaning over the rail and looking at
the playful porpoises beneath them, when he said:

"I hope you don't think I didn't appreciate your father's lovely
offer. You will never know how grateful I really was to him--and to
somebody else, too, who, I think, had something to do with it."

"Of course I don't think you were ungrateful, but I did hate to see
you at work down in that hot place and I don't see why you couldn't
have come up in the cabin and been comfortable and not had to wear
such greasy clothes."