"I thought I'd come to meet you, and run a race home with you," she said to her father, with a fond look.
"That's just like my little cub—allers on hand. Wall, go ahead! the breeze is fair, and I guess we'll beat ye. Hope ye'll make good time, fur I'm beginning to get rather growly in the region of the stomach."
"Pallas expects you," returned Alice, laughing.
"If your skiff were large enough for two, I'd take those oars off your hands," said the young gentleman.
"Nobody ever touches this, but myself," and away sped the fairy affair with its mistress, darting ahead like an arrow, but presently dropping behind as they tacked, and then shooting past them again, the young girl stealing shy glances, as she passed, at the stranger who was watching her with mingled curiosity and admiration. So sweetly bashful, yet so arch and piquant—so rustic, yet so naturally graceful—so young, he could not tell whether she esteemed herself a child or a woman—certainly she was very different from the dozen of tow-headed children he had taken it for granted must run wild about the 'cabin' to which he was now about to make a visit.
"How many children have you, Mr. Wilde?"
"She's all. That's my mill you see just up the mouth of the creek thar. We're nigh on to my cabin now; when we've rounded that pint we shall heave in sight. Seems to me I smell supper. A cold snack is very good for a day or two, but give me suthin' of Pallas' getting up after it. Thar's the cabin!"
Philip had been following with his eyes the pretty sailor, who had already moored her craft to the foot of a huge elm, overhanging the gravelly shore from a sloping bank above, and now stood in the shadow of the tree awaiting them.
If it had not been for the blue smoke curling up in thin wreaths from a stick chimney which rose up in the rear, he would hardly have discovered the dwelling at first sight—a little one-story log-house, so completely covered with clambering vines that it looked like a green mound. Tartarian honeysuckles waved at the very summit of the chimney, and wild-roses curtained every window.