"My face, I suppose, showed my misgivings.
"'It must not fail,' she added.
"'But—but we are nowhere near the Gulf Stream,' I ventured.
"Her face brightened, and she frankly held the sunshade over us both.
"'Ah, you don't know,' she said, 'what else papa has discovered. Would you believe that he has found a loop in the Gulf Stream—a genuine loop—that swings in here just outside of the breakers below? It is true! Everybody on Long Island knows that there is a warm current off the coast, but nobody imagined it was merely a sort of backwater from the Gulf Stream that formed a great circular mill-race around the cone of a subterranean volcano, and rejoined the Gulf Stream off Cape Albatross. But it is! That is why papa bought a yacht three years ago and sailed about for two years so mysteriously. Oh, I did want to go with him so much!'
"'This,' said I, 'is most astonishing.'
"She leaned enthusiastically towards me, her lovely face aglow.
"'Isn't it?' she said; 'and to think that you and papa and I are the only people in the whole world who know this!'
"To be included in such a triology was very delightful.
"'Papa is writing the whole thing—I mean about the currents. He also has in preparation sixteen volumes on the thermosaurus. He said this morning that he was going to ask you to write the story first for some scientific magazine. He is certain that Professor Bruce Stoddard, of Columbia, will write the pamphlets necessary. This will give papa time to attend to the sixteen-volume work, which he expects to finish in three years.'