Dotty liked Solly at that moment very much. She looked at her ill-mannered little cousin with royal disdain, and walked slowly and cautiously on towards the boat. Lina followed at a little distance. Her mother had also forbidden her to go on the water, and had declared that Solomon was too young to manage a boat; but neither Lina nor her brother had very tender consciences. If they did wrong things, and nobody knew it, it was all very well; but if they were found out—ah! then was the time to be sorry! Dotty's conscience had been much better educated than theirs: it gave her plenty of warning, which she would not heed, and tried to stifle by talking.
"It isn't a sail boat. When my mamma went in the scursion, then it was a sail boat, and the wind whistled so the sails shook dreadfully. My mamma never talked to me about wherries; she didn't ever say I mustn't go in a wherry."
While Dotty was still talking, she entered the boat, the last of the five. She seated herself, but was annoyed to find her dainty gaiters sinking into a pool of dirty water. She lifted her feet, but could not keep them up. Well, perhaps she shouldn't have the sore throat after all; she couldn't help it now if she did have it. At any rate she was determined not to complain, when Solly had been so very polite.
"Isn't this prime?" said Johnny, as they launched out upon the water.
The motion was certainly pleasant, and for a few moments Dotty was quite delighted, thinking over and over again,—
"Mamma won't care; it's nothing but a wherry, and the wind doesn't blow."
Then she suddenly remembered her promise to Prudy, not to go "anywhere near the water."
"And I never thought I should. I never s'posed I should see Solly Rosenberg. I didn't know he was in this city. Prudy'd like it just as well as I do, if she was in here, and knew 'twas a wherry."