“I suppose it’s all right, Uncle Peter,” she said. “We couldn’t leave a sick man in the road.”
“Yes, little Missy,” said the colored man, “an’ they ain’t nothin’ in our house wuth takin’ anyhow ceppen it be the gran’ pianner.”
CHAPTER VIII.—MR. DUFFY GIVES A PARTY.
“O’er the waters so blue, o’er the waters so blue,
We’re afloat, we’re afloat in our birch-bark canoe.”
Elinor’s sweet fresh voice, floating across the waters of Lake Worth, seemed a part of the rippling accompaniment made by the waves as they lapped the bow of the Firefly. Edward, the young engineer, absorbed in listening to the music, forgot he was guiding a boatful of people down the lake to an evening party at Mr. Duffy’s villa.
“Be careful,” whispered Billie, sitting near him. “Look out for that boat on the right.”
Edward started from his dream, smiled, and turned the Firefly out of the track of the oncoming boat.
“That’s a pretty song,” said Timothy Peppercorn, “only to be strictly truthful, you should substitute—‘We’re afloat, we’re afloat in our little motor-boat.’”
“There’s nothing poetical about the smell of gasoline,” interrupted Elinor. “It out-perfumes all the orange blossoms and yellow jasmine at Palm Beach.”
“Speaking of gasoline,” Miss Campbell here broke in, “Edward, did you find out any more about that leak that came in the Firefly the other night? Was it—do you—er, could it possibly have been——”