“Here,” said Maurice, stripping off his coat; “put this on.”

The girl made some faint demur, and the men, who were bailing out their half-filled skiff, said, “Oh—­she can have our coats.”

“They’re soaked, aren’t they?” Maurice said; “and I don’t need mine in the least.”

Edith gasped; such reckless gallantry gave her an absolutely new sensation.  Her heart seemed to lurch, and then jump; she breathed hard, and said, under her breath, “Oh, my!” She felt that she could never speak to Maurice again; he was truly a grown-up gentleman!  Her eyes devoured him.

“Do take it,” she heard him say to the crying lady, who no longer interested her; “I assure you I don’t need it,” he said, carelessly; and the “lady” reached out a small, shaking hand, on which the kid glove was soaking wet, and said, her teeth chattering, that she was awfully obliged.

“Get in—­get in!” one of the “gentlemen” said, crossly, and as she stepped into the now bailed-out skiff, she said to Maurice, “Where shall I return it to?”

“I’ll come and get it,” Maurice said—­and she called across the strip of water widening between the two boats: 

“I’m Miss Lily Dale—­” and added her street and number.

Maurice, in his shirt sleeves, lifted his hat; then looked at Edith and grinned.  “Did you ever see such idiots?  Those men are chumps.  Did you hear the fat one jaw at the girl?”

“Did he?” Edith said, timidly.  She could hardly bear to look at Maurice, he was so wonderful.

But he, entirely good-natured again, was overflowing with fun.  “Let’s turn around,” he said, “and follow ’em!  That fatty was rather happy—­did you get on to that flask?”

Edith had no idea what he meant, but she said, breathlessly, “Yes, Maurice.”  In her own mind she was seeing again that princely gesture, that marvelous tossing of his own coat to the “lady”!  “He is exactly like Sir Walter Raleigh,” she said to herself.  She remembered how at Green Hill she had wanted him to spread his coat before Eleanor’s feet;—­but that was commonplace!  Eleanor was just a married person, “like mother.”  This was a wonderful drowning lady!  Oh, he was Sir Walter!  Her eyes were wide with an entirely new emotion—­an emotion which made her draw back sharply when once, as he rowed, his hand touched hers.  She was afraid of that careless touch.  Yet oh, if he would only give her some of his clothes!  Oh, why hadn’t she fallen into the water!  Her heart beat so that she felt she could not speak.  It was not necessary; Maurice, singing a song appropriate to the lady with the red cheeks, was not aware of her silence.

“I bet,” he said, “that cad takes it out of the little thing!  She looked scared, didn’t you think, Edith?”

“Yes, ... sir” the little girl said, breathlessly.

Maurice did not notice the new word; “Sorry not to take you down to the Point,” he said; “but I ought to keep tabs on that boat.  If they capsize again, somebody really might get hurt.  She’s a—­a little fool, of course; but I’d hate to have the fat brute drown her, and he looks capable of it.”