“If you were to tell me all about it, don’t you think I could help you a little?”
“I wanted to tell you ever since I knew,” sighed Kate, with one tear-dimmed glance seaward, “only I thought that perhaps papa and mamma might wish it not spoken of; but now I am sure—” and then Kate went on to tell Harry all that she knew and thought, and a good deal that she felt, about affairs at home. At last she said, “I can bear everything but to let Neptune go. If poor Nep goes, Harry, I want to go with him. He’s my friend—just as Josh is Mrs. Dobson’s; and O, Harry, do you think I ought to tell papa he may sell him?”
Harry was trying to see Frank’s Clover, but somehow it looked very much as though it had been caught in a sudden fog; but it was a fog easily brushed away from the lad’s eyes, as he turned to say to Kate:
“If, Kittie, it comes to selling Neptune, promise me one thing—that you will not let him go until you have told me about it.”
“I promise, Harry; but what good will that do?”
“We will see when the time comes. I am glad you have told me. But, Kittie, I must not spend my morning here. If the wind blows hard, I will go to the town wharf and get a boat to go out after Frank.”
“Mamma has not the least idea that I am not gone with Frank. I must go home and tell her,” said Kate; and thus they parted, Kate going by the way of the brown house to explain her conduct to Mrs. Dobson, and Harry to the cornfield, summing up as he went, for the fortieth or fiftieth time, his little earthly all and wondering whether or not it would do any good to get it all together, in readiness for an emergency.
The day went on, bright and warm for the season, until the afternoon came, and with it there breathed in from the sea a cool, damp air, that presently, almost before one thought of it, changed all the atmosphere to dense fog.
Kate had many times during the morning hours made little visits to the tower room and adjusted the glass, to take into view Frank’s boat. Seeing it, lying off the island and nearby another boat—Captain Green’s, without doubt—she had ceased to feel troubled. Even Mrs. Hallock was satisfied with Kate’s reports, as they came to her from time to time, and contented herself, being very busy in preparing Frank’s clothing for school, until she saw the fog sweep past the windows. Hugo was sent off in haste to learn the whereabouts of Captain Green and the whole household grew anxious and restless.
Kate drove Neptune to the station to meet her father, and greeted him with the news that Frank was off fishing outside of the island, all alone, when the fog came down.