id="id00168">"Yes," assented Belle. "It is all right to be dressed up in a launch when we don't have to motor the boat."

"Oh, I'll attend to the motoring," promised Ed. "I am the fellow who borrowed the boat."

"Has Nettie a key?" asked Cora.

"I guess so," replied Bess. "We can leave the cellar window——"

"We can do nothing of the sort, Bess Robinson," interrupted Belle, "and have that man sneak in? I guess not!"

"Oh, your man!" protested Jack. "Haven't you forgotten him yet?
That's what I call faithful."

"Well, at any rate, I am sure Nettie has her key," finished Bess. "And there is only one more train. If she does not come——"

"I'll sleep in the hammock on the porch," volunteered Jack. "It would be heaps better than melting in the bungalow to-night."

"I thought that bungalow was perfection," remarked Belle.

"It is—on the catalogue. But after a day's sun like to-day we just put our ham and eggs on the corrugated iron roof, and they are done to a turn in the morning, with nice little ridge patterns on them."

"If we are going sailing, we'd better be at it," Walter reminded them. Whereat the girls ran off to get wraps, and shortly returned ready for the trip.

Nor were the wraps lacking in beauty or usefulness. Cora had a family shawl—the kind that defies description outside of the French-English fashion papers. It was of the Paisley order, and did not seem to be cut any place; at the same time it fell in folds about her arms and neck with some invisible fastenings. Her hood was made from a piece of the same wonderfully embroidered stuff—a big red star, with the points drawn in. Bess and Belle both wore pretty cloaks of eiderdown. Bess was in pink and Belle in blue.

"Take your guitar, Cora," suggested Ed. "We will have some singing."

"And you can play that piece—what is it? 'Love's Hankering?'" asked
Jack.

"'Love's Triumph,'" corrected Bess, "and it's the prettiest piece out this summer. Cora plays it beautifully."

"It is pretty," confirmed Belle.

"Yes, I like it," admitted Cora. "As long as you are bent on a romantic evening, we may as well have the little love song," and she slipped the strap of her guitar case over her arm as they started off.

Jack took his banjo. He, too, liked the new summer "hit;" in fact, every one was whistling it as well as they could, but it took tuned strings to give it the correct interpretation.

It was delightful on the water. The smaller bay opened into another and provided safe motor boating. The tide was slowly receding, and as the party glided along, little moonlight-tipped waves seemed to caress the launch. Jack and Cora were playing, Bess and Belle were humming, while Walter was "breathing sounds" that could scarcely be classified, and Ed was content to run the motor.

"Now, isn't that pretty?" asked Belle of Ed, as Cora and Jack finished the popular piece.

"Very catchy," replied the young man.

"But Cora has given it a twist of her own," said Jack; "the end goes this way," and he correctly played a few bars, "while Cora likes it thusly," and he played a strain or two more in different style.

Was it the moonlight on the baby waves? was it the murmur of that gliding boat? or was it something indefinable that so awakened the sentiments of the party of gay motorists?

For some moments no one spoke; then Jack broke the spell with a lively fandango, played in solo.

"This seems too good to last," prophesied Belle, with a sigh, "Do you think it was all right to leave the cottage alone?"

"Now, Tinkle," and Walter moved as if to take her hand, "haven't we assured you that the cottage expressly desired to be left alone to-night, and that we fellows wanted your company?"

It was a pretty speech for Walter, and was not lost on the sensitive
Belle.

"How about sand bars, Ed?" asked Jack. "Might we run onto one?"

"We might, but I guess I could feel one coming. The tide is getting away. We had better veer toward the shore."

"Oh! is there danger?" asked Belle, immediately alarmed.

"Not much," replied Ed, "but we wouldn't like to walk home from this point." He was twisting the wheel so that the launch almost turned. Then a sound like something grating startled them.

"Bottom!" exclaimed Jack, jumping up and going toward the wheel. "That was ground, Ed!"

"Sounded a lot like it, but we can push off. Get that oar there,
Walter; get the other and——"

The launch gave a jerk and then stopped!

"Oh! what is it?" asked Bess and Belle in one voice.

"Nothing serious," Cora assured them. "You see, the tide has gone out so quickly that it has left us on a sand bar. I guess the boys can push off. They know how to handle oars."

But this time even skillful handling of oars would not move the launch. Ed ran the motor at full speed ahead and reversed, but the boat remained on the bar, which now, as the tide rapidly lowered, could be plainly seen in the moonlight.

"What next?" asked Cora coolly.

"Hard to say," replied Ed, in rather a mournful tone. "If we had gone down the bay, we would not have been alone, but I thought this upper end so much more attractive to-night. However, we need not despair. We can wait for the tide."

"Till morning!" almost shouted Belle.

"It's due at three-thirty," announced the imperturbable Walter.

"Oh! what shall we do?" wailed Bess.

"We might walk," suggested Cora. "It isn't very far to that shore, and it's shallow."

"Mercy, no!" exclaimed Belle. "There are all sorts of holes in the mud here. I would stay forever before I would try walking."

Cora laughed. She had no idea of being taken seriously.

"Now, you see," said Walter, "my wisdom in curtailing the chaperon.
Just imagine her now," and he rolled laughingly over toward Jack.

"Easy there! No need for artificial respiration or barrel-rolling just yet," declared Jack. "In fact, if we had a bit of water, we'd be thankful. Let me work the engine, Ed. Maybe I can give luck a turn and get more push out of it."

Ed left his place, and Jack took it, but the sand bar held the little launch like adamant, and it seemed useless to exert the gasoline power further.

"Suppose we have the little ditty again," suggested Ed, taking a seat near Cora. "What was it? 'Love's Latitude?'"

"No, 'Love's Luxury,'" asserted Walter, as he made a comical move toward Belle. But Belle was disconsolate, and she only looked at the moon. It was almost funny, but the humor was entirely lost on the frightened girl.

"When in doubt play 'The Gypsy's Warning,'" suggested Cora, picking up her guitar. "There is something bewitching about that tune."

"See if we can bewitch a wave or two with it," remarked Jack. "That would fetch us in a little nearer to shore."

But the situation was becoming more serious each moment. There they were—high though not exactly dry upon a big sand bar! Not a craft was in sight, and none within call!

"If we only could trust the bottom, we fellows might get out and push her off," suggested Walter, "but it wouldn't be nice to get right in the line with Davy Jones'