“It’s a good thing for you that the steamer didn’t go ashore anywhere near their house,” he said to Frank Harley.  “They’re a pair of born young wreckers.  Just think of the tricks they played on my sister Annie.”

After that conversation, it was remarkable what daily care and attention Dab Kinzer and Frank paid to their sparring lessons.  It even exceeded the pluck and perseverance with which Dab went to work at his French.

Plenty of fishing, bathing, riding, boxing.  Three boys together can find so much more to do than one can alone, and they made it four as often as they could, for Dick Lee had proved himself the best kind of company.  Frank Harley’s East Indian experience had made him very indifferent to the mere question of color, and Ford Foster had too much manhood to forget that long night of gale and fog and danger on board the “Swallow.”

It was only a day or so after the perilous “cruise” that Dab Kinzer met his old playmate, Jenny Walters, just in the edge of the village.

“How well you look, Dabney!” remarked the sharp-tongued little lady.  “Drowning must agree with you.”

“Yes,” said Dab; “I like it.”

“Do you know what a fuss they made over you when you were gone?  I s’pose they’d nothing else to do.”

“Jenny!” suddenly exclaimed Dab, holding out his hand, “you mustn’t quarrel with me any more.  Bill Lee told me about your coming down to the landing.  You may say anything you want to.”

Jenny colored and bit her lip, and she would have given her bonnet to know if Bill Lee had told Dab how very red her eyes were as she looked down the inlet for some sign of the “Swallow.”  Something had to be said, however, and she said it almost spitefully.

“I don’t care, Dabney Kinzer.  It did seem dreadful to think of you three boys being drowned, and you, too, with your new clothes on.  Good-morning, Dab!”

“She’s a right good girl, if she’d only show it,” muttered Dab, as Jenny tripped away; “but she isn’t a bit like Annie Foster.  How I do wish Ham would come back!”

Time enough for that; and as the days went by, the Morris homestead began to look less and less like its old self, and more and more like a house made for people to live and be happy in.  Mrs. Kinzer and her daughters had now settled down into their new quarters as completely as if they had never known any others, and it seemed to Dab, now and then, as if they had taken almost too complete possession.  His mother had her room, as a matter of course, and a big one.  There could be no objection to that.  Then another big one, of the very best, had to be set apart and fitted up for Ham and Miranda on their return, and Dab delighted in doing all in his power to make that room all it could be made.  But, then, Samantha had insisted on a separate domain, and Keziah and Pamela imitated their elder sister to a fraction.  The “guest-chamber” had to be provided as well, or what would become of the good old Long Island customs of hospitality?