if you can manage it. You feel so much more self-respecting. I often hate to bother to dress, too, but I always do it to please her."

Sally promptly registered the mental vow that she would hereafter array herself and Genevieve in clean attire every single afternoon, or perish in the attempt. But clothes was not a subject that ever interested Doris Craig for any length of time, so she soon switched to another.

"Can't you and the baby come out with me in my canoe for a while?" she suggested. "I'm so lonesome. And perhaps you know[Pg 13] how to paddle. You could sit in the bow, and Genevieve in the middle."

[Pg 13]

"Yes, I know how to paddle," admitted Sally. To tell the truth she knew how to run every species of boat her father owned, not even omitting the steam launches. "But we can't take Genevieve in a canoe. She won't sit still enough and Mother has forbidden it. Let's go out in my rowboat instead. Dad lets me use old 45 for myself any time I want, except in the very rush season. It's kind of heavy and leaks a little, but I can row it all right." She indicated a boat far down at the end of the line.

"But I can't row!" exclaimed Doris. "I never learned because we've always had a canoe up at Lake Placid in the Adirondacks where we've usually gone."

"Oh, that doesn't matter," laughed Sally. "I can row the whole three. You sit in the stern with Genevieve, and I'll take you around the river to some places I warrant you've never seen."

Filled with the spirit of the new adventure,[Pg 14] the two hurried along, bearing a somewhat reluctant Genevieve between them, and clambered into the boat numbered "45" at the end of the line. Doris seated herself in the stern with Genevieve and the box of candy. And the baby was soon shyly cuddling up to her and dipping her chubby little fist into the box at frequent intervals. Sally established herself in the bow rowing seat, pushed off with a skilful twist of her oars, and was soon swinging out into the tide with the short, powerful strokes of the native-born to Manituck.

[Pg 14]

It was a perfect June afternoon. The few other boats on the river were mainly those of the native fishermen treading for clams in the shallows, and one or two dipping sailboats. Overhead the fish-hawks sailed and plunged occasionally with a silver flash into the river. The warm scent of the pines was almost 

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