“It would certainly suit me,” assented the matron.
“Oh! hang it all! What’s the use? Hiding in a silly little creek when there’s the whole Chesapeake to cruise in!” cried the disgusted Gerald, leaning upon the little table and hungrily eyeing the platter of chicken.
“How can we dare, how could we if we dared, try the Bay? We haven’t any engine to use now,” said Jim.
“Well, get one, then! If that girl can afford to run a house-boat and ask folks to stay on it, she ought to provide something decent for their entertainment. When we owned the Water Lily we did things up to the queen’s taste. I’m not going to bury myself in any backwoods. I’ll quit first.”
“Boy, are you always so cross before breakfast?” asked a girl’s voice over his shoulder, and he turned to see Dorothy smiling upon him.
“No. Except when I’m sent for cream and hear fool talk from a measly old farmer in a blue smock,” he answered, laughing rather foolishly.
“Was it the color of his smock made him measly? And what was that I heard about quitting?”
“Oh! nothing. I was just fooling. But, I say, Dorothy, don’t you let any old woman coax you into a dead-and-alive hole in the woods. Mark what I say. They’ll be trying it, but the Water Lily’s your boat now, isn’t it?”