“Don’t!” protested Mrs. Creigh with a shiver.
McConnell and Allan went out as a scouting party, with the result that Miss Illwin was found sitting on a bench by the lake, her camera carrying case beside her. She was reading a book. As he came up Allan noticed that she was without her hat.
“You know,” she said, when she saw Allan, “my hat blew into the water when I was setting up just now. Wasn’t it annoying? I was afraid I should have to wait until it drifted over, but that boy with the little yacht aimed his boat so nicely that it caught the hat not far from the shore and now it is pushing it over. See!” and Miss Illwin pointed toward the middle of the pond. “Unfortunately the wind has shifted once or twice, and the yacht has been tacking about in a most provoking way. But there is nothing but to be patient.”
“We are all ready to go,” said Allan.
“Are you? Then I suppose you’ll have to leave me—unless this boat stops tacking.”
“There it comes!” yelled the boys who owned the boat.
The yacht was making straight for the shore. But when it had come within about fifteen feet of the bank, the band of the hat became loosened from the bow, and the yacht came jauntily into port, leaving the hat in its wake.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Miss Illwin. “How provoking.”
“The breeze is carrying it, anyway,” said McConnell.
But the hat drifted very slowly, and finally stopped altogether, anchored by a water-lily.