"One of the Dean's little children is buried in Trinity churchyard, Cannie," she ended; "you can look up the stone some day. It has 'Lucia Berkeley' carved upon it."
"I should like to," said Cannie. "It has been so nice to hear about him. How many interesting things have happened in Newport! I shall care a great deal more about that funny little organ, next Sunday."
Newport Harbor shone all blue and silver in the sun, as the party stepped on board the cat-boat "Cornelia" at sharp four on Monday afternoon. Mrs. Fred Allen, a tall, graceful brunette, seemed as much of a girl as any of the party which she was nominally to "matronize;" but "she was married though she didn't look it," as Berry Joy remarked, and so was qualified to fill the place. There was a fair wind, which sent the boat smoothly along with little or no motion as they glided past the long sunken shoal off the end of Goat Island, and opened the view of Brenton's Cove, with the wreck of the old slaver lying in the deep shadow under one bank, opposite the ribs of the other stranded bark; while from beyond in the laughing bay, white-winged boats flitted to and fro, and seemed to beckon and make tempting signals to the poor defeated barks who might never sail or enjoy the sea again. Candace ventured to ask Gertrude in a whisper, "What are those?"
"Oh, only some old wrecks," replied Gertrude, carelessly; and she turned from Candace to talk to Tom Joy, who sat next to her.
The "Cornelia" was now running on the favoring wind between Fort Adams and the Conanicut shore. On one hand lay Newport, which looked like a dream city in the soft shine of the afternoon; on the other was the long hill line of the island, green with grasses, except where broken now and then by rocky cliffs, and indented with innumerable little coves and inlets,—some ending in strips of pebbly beach, others in stony shelves overhung by sea-weeds. The water was beautiful in color,—here pale flashing green, there purple in the shadow, with gleams of golden light and a low reach of shimmering blue toward the horizon. On sped the boat till they could almost touch the ledges. The rounded outline of the old fortification on the upper hill towered above their heads. Then suddenly she curved and wheeled off on the other tack, with the sharp line of Castle Hill and the Agassiz Point full in view.
Candace gazed with delighted eyes to left and right. Her mind was full of questions, but there seemed no one of whom she could ask them. Georgie and Berry were perched on the extreme point of the bow, with a young man stretched at their feet. Mrs. Fred was on the cabin roof amidships, with quite a little court of girls and young men about her. The couples who sat opposite and beside her seemed quite absorbed in each other. No one had spoken to Candace since the first introductions, and she was too shy to open a conversation with anybody.
"How I wish I knew!" she sighed to herself, half aloud.
Looking up, she met the shrewd, twinkling eyes of the Captain. Perhaps he had caught the words, for he asked encouragingly, "Did you speak, Miss?"
"No," said Candace, "I don't think I spoke. But I was wondering about that—that—thing up there," pointing to the Fort.