Migwan's eyes, as usual, went roving in search of Miss Amesbury, but tonight, to her sorrow, they did not find her anywhere in the canoes.
"Where is Miss Amesbury?" she asked of Miss Judy, as her canoe came up alongside of the "lunch counter."
"She didn't come out with us tonight," replied Miss Judy, tipping the milk can far over to pour out the last drop. "She wanted to do some writing, she said."
Migwan sighed quietly and gave herself over to being agreeable to her canoe mates, but the occasion had lost its savor for her.
Supper finished, the canoes began to drift westward toward the setting sun, following the broad streak of light that lay like a magic highway upon the water, while guitars and mandolins began to tinkle, and from all around clear girlish voices, blended together in exquisite harmony, took up song after song.
"Oh, I could float along like this and sing forever!" breathed Hinpoha, picking out soft chords on her guitar, and looking dreamily at the evening star glowing like a jewelled lamp in the western sky.
"So could I," replied Migwan, leaning back in the canoe with her hands clasped behind her head, and letting the light breeze ruffle the soft tendrils of hair around her temples. "It is going to be full moon tonight," she added. "See, there it is, rising above the treetops. How big and bright it is! Can it be possible that it is only a mass of dead chalk and not a ball of burnished silver? Gladys will enjoy that moon, she always loves it so when it is so big and round and bright. By the way, where is Gladys? I saw her in a canoe not long ago, but I don't see her anywhere now."
"I don't know where she is," replied Hinpoha, glancing idly around at the various craft and then letting her eyes rest upon the moon again.
The little fleet had rounded an island and turned back upstream, now traveling in the silver moon-path, now gliding through velvety black shadows, and was approaching a long, low ledge of rock that jutted out into the water just beyond the big bend in the river. A sudden exclamation of "Ah-h!" drew everybody's attention to the rock, and there a wondrous spectacle presented itself—a white robed figure dancing in the moonlight as lighty as a bit of seafoam, her filmy draperies fluttering in the wind, her long yellow hair twined with lillies.
"Who is it?" several voices cried in wonder, and the paddlers stopped spellbound with their paddles poised in air.