Star had to stretch his pretty legs at a great rate, to keep up with the Maid this morning, though her master moderated her transports.  The more like birds they flew, the more Jewel enjoyed it.  She knew now how to get Star’s best speed, and the pony scarcely felt her weight, so lightly did she adapt herself to his every motion.

With cheeks tingling in the fine salt air, the riders finally came to a walk in the quiet country road.

“I’ve been looking up that boat business, Jewel,” said Mr. Evringham.  “The thing is hardly worth fixing.  It would take a good while, just at the time we want the boat, too.”

“Well, then,” returned the child, “we’ll have to make it do.  There are so many happinesses here, it isn’t any matter if the boat isn’t just right; but I was thinking, grandpa, if you wouldn’t wear such nice shoes, I’d go barefooted, and then we could both sit on the same seat and let the water come in, while I use one oar and you the other; or”—­her face suddenly glowing with a brilliant idea—­“we could both wear our bathing-suits!”

“Yes,” returned the broker, “I think if you were to row we might need them.”

The child laughed.

“No, Jewel, no; we’d better bathe when we bathe, and row when we row, and not mix them.  You couldn’t do anything with even one of those clumsy oars in that tub of a boat.”

As Mr. Evringham said this, he saw the disappointment in the little girl’s face as she looked straight ahead, and noted, too, her effort to conquer it.

“Well, I do have so many happinesses,” she replied.

“It will be a grand sight at the beach this morning, with the sunlight on the stormy waves,” said Mr. Evringham.  “The water-baby will have to keep out of them, though.”

Jewel lifted her shoulders and looked at him.  “Then we ought to row over, don’t you think so?”

“You’re not willing to be a thorough-going land lubber, are you?” returned the broker.

“No,” Jewel sighed.  “I’d rather bail than keep off the pond.  Oh, but I forgot,” with a sudden thought, “mother’d get wet if she rowed over and it would be too bad to make her walk through the fields alone.”

There was a little silence and then Mr. Evringham turned the horses into the homeward way.

“I begin to feel as if breakfast would be acceptable, Jewel.  How is it with you?”

“Why, I could eat”—­began the child hungrily, “I could eat”—­

“Eggs?” suggested the broker, as she paused to think of something sufficiently inedible.

“Almost,” returned the child seriously.  Another pause, and then she continued.  “Grandpa, wouldn’t it be nice if mother had somebody to play with, too, so we could go out in the boat whenever we wanted to?”

“Yes.  Why doesn’t your father hurry up his affairs?”

Jewel looked at the broker.  “He has.  He thought it was error for him not to let the people there know that he was going to leave them after a while; so they began right off to try to find somebody else, and they have already.”