season. Can't we be good friends and see each other a lot, and have a jolly time on the river,—you and Genevieve and I?"

The appeal was one that Sally could scarcely have resisted, even had she not herself yearned for the same thing. "It—it would be fine!" she acknowledged, shyly. "I'm—I'm awfully glad—if you want to."

They drifted about idly a while longer, discussing a trip for the next morning, in which Sally proposed to show her new friend the deserted mill, up Cranberry Creek. And Doris announced that she was going to learn to row,[Pg 30] so that the whole burden of that task might not fall on Sally.

[Pg 30]

"But now I must go in," she ended. "It's growing dark and Mother will worry. But you be here in the morning at half-past nine with your boat, if we'd better not take the canoe on account of Genevieve, and we'll have a jolly day."

Not once during all this time, had there been the least reference to the mysterious hint of Sally's during the earlier afternoon. But this was not at all because Doris had forgotten it. She was, to tell the truth, even more curious about it than ever. Her vivid imagination had been busy with it ever since, weaving all sorts of strange and fantastic fancies about the suggestion. Did the river have a mystery? What could its nature be, and how had Sally discovered it? Did any one else know? The deepening shadows on the farther shore added the last touch to her busy speculations. They suggested possibilities of every hue and kind. But not for worlds would she have had Sally guess how ardently she longed for its revelation.[Pg 31] Sally should tell her in good time, or not at all, if she were so inclined: never because she (Doris) had asked to be admitted to this precious secret.

[Pg 31]

They beached the canoe, still talking busily about the morrow's plans, and together hauled it up in the sea-grass and turned it bottom upward. And then Sally prepared to take her departure. But after she had said good-bye, she still lingered uncertainly, as if she had something else on her mind. It was only when she had turned to walk away across the beach, that she suddenly wheeled and ran up to Doris once more.

"I—I want to tell you something," she hesitated. "I—perhaps—sometime I'll tell you more, but—the secret—Genevieve's and mine—is up on Slipper Point!"

And before Doris could reply, she was gone, racing away 

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