“Well, but it’s just so nice, dearie, that it’s here.”

“You going out in it?” he demanded.

Katie looked around.  Some soldiers and some golfers in the distance, but like the day Ann had come upon the Island, no one within immediate range.

“Watts says she’s running like a bird, Aunt Kate.  Somebody was out this morning and somebody’s going again this afternoon.”

“Maybe she won’t be here for them to take!”

“You going to take it, Aunt Kate?” he pressed excitedly.

“Well, I don’t just know, Worth.”  She looked up the river.  She could see a part of the little island where she had once pulled in to ask about the underlying principles of life, but not being able to see the other side of it, how could she be sure whether a launch ride was what she wanted or not?

“Father says we mustn’t go in it alone, Aunt Kate.  Shall I see if we can get Watts?”

“N—­o; that’s not exactly the idea,” said Aunt Kate, stepping into the launch.

“Goin’, Aunt Kate?”

“Why—­I don’t know.  I thought I’d just sit in it a little while.”

So Worth joined her for the delightful pastime of just sitting in it for a little while.

“I’d rather like to find out whether it’s in good condition.”  She turned to Worth appealing.  “It seems we ought to be able to tell father whether they’re taking good care of it, doesn’t it, Worth?”

“I guess I’ll go and get Watts.”

“I don’t know why, but I don’t seem able to get up a great deal of enthusiasm for that idea.”  Her fingers were upon the steering wheel, longingly.  Eyes, too, were longing.  Suddenly she started the engine.  “We’ll just run round the head of the Island,” she said.

So they started up the river—­the river as blue and lovely as it had been that day a year before when she had cheated it, and had begun to see that life was cheating her.

“Worth,” she asked, “what is there on the other side of that little island?”

“Why, Aunt Kate—­why on the other side of it is the man that mends the boats.”

“Oh, that so?  Funny I never thought of that.

“But I suppose,” she began again, “he wouldn’t be very likely to be there mending boats now?”

“Why yes, Aunt Kate, he might be.”

“You heard anything about him, Worth?”

“Yes sir; Watts says he has cut him out.  He says he’s on to him.”

“That must be a bitter blow,” said Aunt Kate.  “Watts getting on to one—­and cutting one out.

“Watts say anything about whether he was still mending boats?” she asked in the off-hand manner people adopt for vital things.

“Why I guess he is, ’cause he made a speech last week—­oh there was a whole lot of men—­and he just sowed seeds of discontentment.”

“Such a busy little sower!” murmured Aunt Kate lovingly.