“This is only an outside edge of it.  It’s a good deal worse than this out at sea.  I’m glad we’re not out in it.”

Ford Foster thought that about the worst of that weather was when the afternoon train came in, and he had to show a pair of tired, moist, and altogether unpleasant cousins to the room set apart for them.  The clouds in his mind did not clear away perceptibly even when, just after supper, a note came in from Mrs. Kinzer, inviting the Hart boys to join the yachting-party next morning.

“The storm may not be over,” growled Ford a little sulkily.

“Oh!” said Annie, “Mrs. Kinzer adds that the weather will surely be fine after such a blow, and the bay will be quite safe and smooth.”

“Does she know the clerk of the weather?” asked Joe Hart.

“Got one of her own,” said Ford.

Joe and Ford both found something to laugh at in that, but they said nothing.  They were both feeling a little “strange,” as yet, and were almost inclined to try and behave themselves; the main difficulty in the way of it being a queer idea they had that their ordinary way of doing things made up a fair article of “good behavior.”  Nobody had taken the pains to bounce them out of the notion.

When the morning really came, sea and earth and sky seemed to be all the better for the trial they had been through, and the weather was all that Mrs. Kinzer had prophesied of it.  The grass and trees were greener, and the bay seemed bluer; while the few clouds visible were very white and clean, as if all the storms had been recently washed out of them.

There was no question now to be raised concerning the yachting-party, or any part of it.  Not a single thing went wrong in Mrs. Kinzer’s management of the “setting out,” and that was half the day won to begin with.  Ford had some difficulty in getting Joe and Fuz out of bed so early as was necessary; but he gave them an intimation which proved quite sufficient:—­

“You’d better hop, boys.  Ham Morris wouldn’t wait five minutes for the Queen of England, or even for me.”

“Joe,” whispered Fuz, a little while after they got on board the yacht, “are we to be gone a week?”

“Why?  What’s up?”

“Such piles of provisions as they’ve stowed away in that kennel!”

The bit of a water-tight cabin under the half-deck, at which Fuz pointed, was pretty well filled, beyond a doubt; but Mrs. Kinzer knew what she was about.  She had provided luncheon for most of that party before, and the effect on them of the sea-air was also to be taken into account.

“Dab,” said Ford Foster, “you’ve forgotten to unhitch the ‘Jenny,’ Here she is, towing astern.”

“That’s all right.  We may need her.  She’s too heavy to be taken on board.”

A careful fellow was Mr. Hamilton Morris, and he well knew the value of a rowboat to a sea-going picnic-party.  As for Joe and Fuz, they were compelled to overcome a strong inward inclination to cast the boat loose.  Such a good joke it would have been!  But Ham Morris was in the way of it, so long as he stood at the tiller.