"I don't know much about Henry Blake's dog," spoke Mr. Dalton. "But I guess we won't let Rick have one right away. He can wait. Hello, nearly nine o'clock!" he went on, as he looked at his watch in the faint light of the moon, which, now and then, shone through the clouds. "I'll call the children in. Rick's finished playing ball long ago. I hear him talking with the boys over in the lots. We're going to have a storm, I guess, by the way the old ocean is booming to-night. Wind's in the north-east, too!"
"Oh, I don't like north-easters!" exclaimed Mrs. Dalton. "The wind gets so terrible!"
"Yes, a September storm can sometimes tear things up pretty badly," said her husband, as he arose from his seat on the porch. "Well, maybe this won't be as bad as they sometimes are."
Rick and Mazie were called in and sent up to bed, and then their father and mother sat down stairs to read. The wind freshened and the beach, where Rick had sat that afternoon, tossing pebbles into the little waves, was covered with white-capped breakers.
"Mazie!" called Rick, in a whisper from his room across the hall. "Mazie—are you asleep?"
"Almost," she drowsily answered. "Are you?"
"No. I say, Mazie, did you—did you ever say your prayers for anything you wanted an awful lot, like a—like a doll, or a pair of roller skates?"
"Yep! I did once!" said the little girl. "Once I prayed for a doll carriage."
"Did you get it?" asked Rick, eagerly.
"No, but I got a cradle and that was just as good. Why, Rick?"