The baby gravely nodded again, and Sally headed her boat for the wagon-bridge that crossed the upper part of the river. [Pg 18] [Pg 18] CHAPTER II THE ACQUAINTANCE RIPENS Doris said no more on the subject. She was too well-bred to persist in such a demand when it did not seem to be welcome. But though she promptly changed the subject and talked about other things, inwardly she had become transformed into a seething cauldron of curiosity. Sally headed the boat for the draw in the bridge, and in another few moments they had passed from the quiet, well-kept, bungalow-strewn shores of the lower river, to the wild, tawny, uninhabited beauty of the upper. The change was very marked, and the wagon bridge seemed to be the dividing line. "How different the river is up here," remarked Doris. "Not a house or a bungalow, or even a fisherman's shack in sight." "It is," agreed Sally. And then, in an unusual[Pg 19] burst of confidence, she added, "Do you know what I always think of when I pass through that bridge into this part of the river? It's from the 'Ancient Mariner': [Pg 19] "'We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.'" "'We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.'" Doris stared at her companion in amazement. How came this barefooted child of thirteen or fourteen, in a little, out-of-the-way New Jersey coast village to be quoting poetry? Where had she learned it? Doris's own father and mother were untiring readers of poetry and other literature, and they were bringing their daughter up in their footsteps. But surely, this village girl had never learned such things from her parents. Sally must have sensed the unspoken question. "That's a long poem in a big book we have," she explained. "It has lovely pictures in it made by a man named
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