But she was not sleepy herself—not even when Molly bade her a warm good-night and went into her own stateroom, which was not far from Beth’s. The latter encircled the outer main deck again. The Water Wagtail was in midstream. She was a side-wheeler, and the splashing of her buckets and the creak of her walking-beam, added to the hiss! hiss! of the spray from overside, played an accompaniment to Beth’s thoughts.
Her first night away from home! Never had she slept from under her parents’ roof before. Her own little room, shared with Ella, was the only chamber in which the girl had ever spent the night.
Little wonder that she felt nervous, if not apprehensive. There were two berths in her room—an upper and lower. She would have been glad to share the stateroom with Molly Granger; but she shrank from admitting to even that easy-going, jolly chum that she felt the need of company at night.
She shrank, too, from going to her stateroom and locking herself in.
Instead, she wandered about the boat again. She spent more than two hours going from deck to deck—sitting a while in one place, then getting up and wandering about, wrapped well in her raincoat to keep out the thick mist.
Several times she saw the freckled-faced girl. Either she had no stateroom, or else, with Beth, she did not feel like going to it. And her expression of countenance and deeply despondent manner troubled the girl from Hudsonvale.
“I wish I could do something for her,” thought Beth. “She must be poverty poor with that get-up. Dear me! I haven’t any too much money myself; but if a little would help her——”
She finally started toward the strange girl, determined to accost her; but just then the latter arose from her seat and approached one of the uniformed officers of the boat, then just passing through the cabin.
“Are we near Brakelock, yet?” Beth heard the girl ask.
“We’re not far from that landing, Miss; but we stop there only on the down trip unless we’re signalled to take passengers. Nothing doing to-night, Miss.”