Katherine Post.
“What larks!” cried Barbara, blushing with pleasure. “Has Miss Sallie said we could go?”
“Certainly she has,” rejoined Ruth. “I told Hugh so at once.”
Columbia, the gem of the ocean,
The home of the brave and the free,
The shrine of each patriot’s devotion——
The young people were in the bow of the yacht when the music commenced. “Why, Hugh,” Bab whispered to him in an undertone, “have we a band on board? How perfectly delightful!”
“Young Miss America,” Hugh answered, “you needn’t think, for one minute, that this party on the ‘Penguin’ is going to enjoy any ordinary entertainment to-day. The band is not half. Just you wait, and see all the remarkable things that are to take place on this blessed boat excursion.”
Earlier in the day, when Ruth and Grace first came aboard, they passed through the salon on their way to the upper deck. Grace caught hold of Ruth’s sleeve and drew her back to whisper to her: “Has it ever occurred to you that Harry Townsend might have stolen your fifty dollars that disappeared after we spent our first day on the yacht? I have been thinking that he must have been dreadfully hard up, or he never would have tried the robbery at New Haven, or have stolen such a small sum from you afterwards.”
“Yes, I have thought about it,” said Ruth, shaking her head, with a forlorn gesture. “Isn’t it too dreadful? Let’s forget all about him to-day.”