The girls had got their hats and were already out upon the veranda.
"Come, Bruce: have you decided whether there is an important case pending or not?" called the doctor.
Mrs. Tascher gave him a little push, and he sauntered out. She stood in the doorway and saw him, with a feeling of satisfaction, pair off with Miss Custer after they had got outside the gate. "I believe she likes him twenty times better than she does the doctor," she soliloquized. "And yet with what persistency she clings to Ruth and her lover! Poor Ruth! She takes her down in good faith."
The stream upon which Westbrook was built was about half a mile distant, and the sun was going down when they reached the big oak where the boat was anchored. Doctor Ebling clambered down the steep bank and unlocked it, and got in and rowed up a little way to where there was a better descent.
"Now, then, shall we all go at once," said he, "or take turns?"
"It is such a diminutive vessel," said Bruce, eying it doubtingly, "that perhaps Miss Custer and myself had better 'pause upon the brink' here, and wait until you two have made a short voyage."
"Oh, we shall not make a very short voyage," said Ruth, running down the bank and grasping the doctor's hand as he held it out to steady her in stepping into the boat. "I want to go up as far as the bridge and make a sketch to-night: the sunset and the moon-rise are lovely."
"Better come on—don't think we'll upset," said the doctor, beginning, nevertheless, to push off.
Bruce looked about and found a log to sit on. "Just spread your shawl on it," said he; and Miss Custer was obliged to unfold her beautiful white burnous.