find her, he had an evening of passionate delight, even though
occasionally she snubbed him, lazily.

"Do you go out in your skiff much?" she asked once; and when he
answered, "No; I filled it with stones and sunk it, because you didn't
like rowing," she spoke to him with a sharpness that surprised
herself, though it produced no effect whatever on Sam.

"You are a very foolish boy! What difference does it make whether I
like rowing or not?"

Sam smiled placidly, and said he had had hard work to get stones
enough to fill the skiff. "I put them in," he explained, "and then I
sculled out in mid-stream, and scuttled her. I had to swim ashore. It
was night, and the water was like flowing ink, and there was a star in
every ripple," he ended dreamily.

"Sam," she said, "if you don't stop being so foolish, I won't let you
come and see me,"

"Am I a nuisance about my drama?" he asked with alarm.

"Not about your drama," she said significantly; but Sam was too happy
to draw any unflattering deductions.

When old Mr. Wright discovered that his stratagem of keeping his
grandson late Sunday evenings had not checked the boy's acquaintance
with Mrs. Richie, he tried a more direct method. "You young ass! Can't
you keep away from that house? She thinks you are a nuisance!"