"I see her!" exclaimed he, as he headed his boat so as to intercept her.
"Is she handsome?" asked Bessie.
"I can't make her out very well at this distance; but we shall be up with her in half an hour or so."
Bessie looked through the glass, and so did Mrs. McGilvery, but they did not obtain much satisfaction. The yacht was making her ten knots, and in the time Levi had named they were within hailing distance of her.
"She is a beauty, and no mistake!" exclaimed the skipper, warmly. "She is pretty enough to be called the Bessie Watson."
"You mustn't say such things, Levi. They are not pretty," said Bessie, very seriously.
"The yacht is pretty enough, and so is the one she ought to have been named after," persisted the gallant skipper.
"There it is again! You are real naughty, Levi," pouted she; and probably, like all pretty girls, she had a distaste for compliments.
"Yacht ahoy!" shouted Levi.
But Mr. Watson had already recognized The Starry Flag, and the yacht was thrown up into the wind. Levi hauled in his sheet, and sailed in a graceful curve around the stern of the vessel, intent upon reading the secret which had been so persistently kept from him.