"You do please him; you satisfy him in everything. He told Hollis so."
"Why, I didn't tell you that Hollis came in the train with me. See how you make me forget everything. He is to stay here a day or so, and then go on a fishing excursion with some friends, and then come back here for another day or so. What a fine fellow he is. He is the gentleman among us boys."
"I would like to know what you are," said Linnet indignantly.
"A rough old tar," laughed Will, for the sake of the flash in his wife's eyes.
"Then I'm a rough old tar too," said Linnet decidedly.
How short the evening was! They went across the fields to see Hollis, and to talk over affairs with the largest owner of the Linnet. Linnet wondered when she knelt beside Will that night if it would be wrong to ask God to keep the wind ahead until Monday morning. Marjorie moaned in her sleep in real trouble. Linnet dreamed that she awoke Sunday morning and the wind had not changed.
But she did not awake until she heard a heavy rap on the window pane. It was scarcely light, and Will had sprung out of bed and had raised the window and was talking to his father.
"I'll be here in an hour or less time to drive you into Portland. Hollis won't drive you; but I'll be here on time."
"But, father," expostulated Will. He had never resisted his father's will as the others had done. He inherited his mother's peace-loving disposition; he could only expostulate and yield.
"The Linnet must sail, or I'll find another master," said his father in his harshest voice.