Dare laughed.
"I heard what you said," she replied, softly. "Now if you will sit here with me at the stern, it will trim the boat, and we can make for home."
But the wind, with the uncertainty of a thunder-storm, had shifted further to the north, and it was apparent even to Mollie that they were being driven far away from the Shoals.
"Why don't you hoist your sail," cried Tom, from his seat in the bow, "and steer for the Island? You'll go to Boston if you keep on this way."
Just then a fresh squall drove the boat ahead with such force that the water broke over the bow, and Tom was for the time suppressed. Fortunately the dory was stanch and seaworthy. It rode the waves lightly, and so long as Dare could keep it before the wind she had no fears of its capsizing. But every breath of wind carried them further away from home. Presently the rain began to fall; and then Mollie, that Dare might not be wet, insisted upon covering her shoulders with the jacket also.
"But I never take cold," Dare protested. "I'm wet through half the time when I'm out in the dory, and don't know what it is to be sick."
"But I sha'n't feel right unless you take part of it," the other declared. "I'll sit close to you, dear, like this, and there'll be enough for both of us."
So Dare did not resist. It was a new experience for her to be affectionately treated, and she did not need the jacket to make her feel warm. As Mollie's arm crept round her waist, and the girl's little head rested on her shoulder, she felt that something had come to her which all her life had lacked. Leaning over, she kissed the upturned forehead.
"You're not frightened, dear?" she asked.
Just then a sharp flash of lightning forked across the sky, followed almost immediately by a deafening peal of thunder. Mollie hid her face in Dare's dress.