Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/79

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BLUE PETER
65

laughing with what breath they had, and from the height, still lit by the sun, looked down into the cove and the fields of home,—a deep bowl of soft evening shadows.

"Oh, my poor father," said Helen, changing. "I'd forgotten his side of it." She paused, in a study. "You must n't come to dinner, " she said. "Come in late, and make some excuse. I could n't carry it off with you there. Do go over the hill and see them fish. He has n't forbidden you." Her face was clouded at the prospect of deceit.

"I 'll go, then," said Archer, bitterly disappointed, and yet happy as a lord of the world. "But I can't stay."

"Oh, to-morrow," she called back from below, "to-morrow we must talk—a great deal. We must know each other first. But your ship?"

"I 'll go see the captain, and he 'll swear," said Archer. "There she is." And he pointed to the masts of a barkentine lying at a wharf in the distant town. "But she can sail without me," he laughed, and tossed his hand gayly in the air, snapping his fingers at the