“Well, I do think, if ever there was a misnamed thing, it is a party of pleasure,” said the lady disconsolately.

“They are very pleasant when they are over, sister Gary,” said Mr. Randolph.

“Daisy,” Nora whispered, “are you afraid?”

“No.”

“Your father says it is rough.”

“He knows how to manage the boat,” said Daisy.

“It isn’t rough, I don’t believe,” said Ella Stanfield.  “It isn’t rough now.”

“I wish we were at the other side,” said Nora.

“O Nora, I think it is nice,” said Daisy.  “How bright the moonlight is!  Look—­all over the river there is a broad strip.  I hope we shall sail along just in that strip.  Isn’t it wonderful, Nora?”

“No.  What?” said Nora.

“That there should be something like a looking-glass up in the sky to catch the sunlight and reflect it down to us when we cannot see the sun itself.”

“What looking-glass?”

“Well, the moon catches the sunlight just so, as a looking glass would.”

“How do you know, Daisy? I think it shines.”

“I know because I have been told.  It does not shine, any more than a looking-glass.”

“Who told you?”

“Dr. Sandford,” Daisy whispered.

“Did he!  Then why don’t we have the moon every night?”

“Because the looking-glass, if you can imagine that it is a looking-glass, does not always hang where it can catch the sun.”

“Don’t it?  I don’t like to think it is a looking-glass,” said Nora.  “I would a great deal rather think it is the moon.”

“Well, so it is,” said Daisy.  “You can think so.”

“Daisy, what should we do if it should be rough in the middle of the river?”

“I like it,” said Ella Stanfield.

“Perhaps it will not be very rough,” said Daisy.

“But suppose it should?  And where the moon don’t shine it is so dark!”

“Nora,” said Daisy very low, “don’t you love Jesus?”

Nora at that flounced round, and turning her face from Daisy and the moonlight, began to talk to Ella Stanfield on the other side of her.  Daisy did not understand what it meant.

All this while, and a good while longer, the rest of the people were waiting with various degrees of patience and impatience for the coming of Sam and the men.  It was pretty there by the shore, if they had not been impatient.  The evening breeze was exceedingly fragrant and fresh; the light which streamed down from the moon was sparkling on all the surface of the water, and laid a broad band of illumination like a causeway across the river.  In one or two places the light shewed the sails of a sloop or schooner on her way up or down; and along the shore it grew daintily hazy and soft.  But impatience was nevertheless the prominent feeling on board the sail-boat; and it had good time to display itself before Michael and James could go all the distance back to the house and bring Sam away from it.