"What! the one in which you told me of Jessie's marriage to Captain Gordon, and that the dominie had retired from his school, and that you were promoted to captain, and had called your new boat the Thora? Yes, certainly, I got it."
"But there was something else I said in it, Thora--something more important to me than these things you speak of. Did you not read that part?"
Thora looked meekly down at the white planks of the deck, her cheeks growing rosy and her breath coming quick. Then turning her eyes aft towards the steering wheel, she said, crossing the deck:
"Captain Ericson, do you not think you should be attending to the piloting of this ship?"
"No," I said, following her across to the lee side, where the great mizzen sail shielded us from the view of others on board. "No; my mate, Willie Hercus, is looking after that. I am off duty today. I am here not as pilot; I have come out to welcome you home."
Then, after a long silence, during which we both looked overboard upon the dancing waves, where the porpoises rolled in play, and the gulls dipped lightly on balanced wings, I said:
"Thora, you did not answer all my letter when you wrote. You were not offended, were you, by what I said?"
"I know what you mean, Halcro," she said, resting her hand upon the rail and turning her eyes full upon me, "I was not offended, or I should not now be here. I did not answer you in writing. I have come to answer you in person."
She put her hand in mine, and added the one word:
"Yes."