"Daisy, what should we do if it should be rough in the middle of the river?"
"I like it," said Ella Stanfield.
"Perhaps it will not be very rough," said Daisy.
"But suppose it should? And where the moon don't shine it is so dark!"
"Nora," said Daisy, very low, "don't you love Jesus?"
Nora at that flounced round, and turning her face from Daisy. and the moonlight, began to talk to Ella Stanfield on the other side of her. Daisy did not understand what it meant.
All this while, and a good while longer, the rest of the people were waiting with various degrees of patience and impatience for the coming of Sam and the men. It was pretty there by the shore, if they had not been impatient. The evening breeze was exceedingly fragrant and fresh; the light which streamed down from the moon was sparkling on all the surface of the water, and laid a broad band of illumination like a causeway across the river. In one or two places the light showed the sails of a sloop or schooner on her way up or down; and along the shore it grew daintily hazy and soft. But impatience was nevertheless the prominent feeling on board the sail-boat; and it had good time to display itself before Michael and James could go all the distance back to the house and bring Sam away from it.
"Here he is!" "There they are at last!" were the words of hail with which their appearance was greeted. "Now off" and with all haste the three were received on board and the vessel pushed out into the stream. Immediately her sail caught the breeze which came fair down the river, and careening a little as she took it, her head began to make good speed across the causeway of moonlight. But then the ladies began to scream; for in mid-channel the wind was fresh and the waters had not quite forgotten yet the tumult of the late storm, which had tossed them well. The sail-boat danced bravely, up and down, going across the waves. Among the frightened people was Nora, who, grasping Daisy's dress with one hand and some part of the boat with the other, kept uttering little cries of "Oh Daisy " "Oh! Daisy," with every fresh lurch of the vessel. Ella Stanfield had thrown herself down in her mother's lap. Daisy was very much tried.
"Nora," she said, "I wish you would not cry so!"
"But I am afraid!"