"Let us talk in the boat, Clover. Sorry Mrs. Bryant isn't well. I'll call again when she can see me. It is just right for a sail. Don't you want to come?"
"Yes, indeed," returned the girl heartily. "I have had only one sail this summer. Let me go and get my hat, and say good-by to mother."
She ran upstairs and presently returned. Not a trace of yesterday's care appeared in her countenance as the two started out gayly on the road they had often traveled together.
Hyde Park still bore traces of being a country village. The young people walked through fields of sweet clover and goldenrod, where now massive hotels and blocks of granite and glass uprear. Chatting and laughing, they hastened on toward the boat-house.
"It is pleasant to be back, I declare," said Jack heartily, looking with affection over the billowy water, striped with greens and blues, which had been his boyhood's playground. "Father says old friends are best, and I believe he is right."
"Is he coming with us, this afternoon?" asked Clover half shyly.
"Why no," replied her companion, looking at her with undisguised astonishment. "You don't mean to say father has developed a taste for sailing while I have been off at the seat of learning?"
"He always liked it very well, didn't he?"
"Why, I believe he always preferred driving. I told Michael to put the Flirt in the water. Yes, there she is. Now for an old timer, Clover; the wind is superb."
The girl followed the speaker out upon the pier, and, resting her hand lightly in the one he offered, stepped into the boat. Jack followed, and they moved slowly along the little harbor and out through the narrow opening between pier and breakwater, which has ushered so many boating parties into the joys of a brisk voyage, and will do so no more forever.