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One August evening of the year 1743 a boat lay as if anchored in the beautiful Piscataqua; her sail seemed swung only to show its whiteness in the bright moonlight. Every cord upon it hung lifeless, serving only the purpose of pictured lines, one silvered in the light, the dark shadow of the other traced in clear outlines on the sail. The swash of the waves against the side of the boat was too slight to sway it; the sheet dipped in the water and swung almost imperceptibly, while now and then a few straws floated against it and caught there.

The moon, high in the heavens, gave pearly tints to the clouds that floated near it; the pines on the shore flung dark masses against the oaks and maples, or stood as a Rembrandt background for the boughs of the trees on which the moonlight fell, or for some ghostly procession of the white birch trunks. The water, in the shadows as dark and smooth as a Claude Lorraine glass, showed far off in the moonlight faint quivers of its surface here and there, as if the breeze so longed for were coming to the idle boat. But it was too far off, or too faint, for it spent itself before reaching the watchers there, although at the symptoms one of them rose with great show of solemnity, and making a trumpet of his hands, blew vigorously against the sail. But neither these movements nor the concerts of whistling were successful. At last another of the company leaning over the side of the boat busied himself with the sheet.

"I'll tell you the reason this boat don't go," he said, gravely, "the rope was all twisted. I've straightened it out, and taken off the straws."

A burst of laughter greeted him as he turned around his face, still grave, but his dark eyes, roving from one to another, their laughing expression hidden in the shadow, for the moon was behind him.

"What a useful member of society you are, Stephen," cried Katie Archdale. "I don't see how we could get on without you."

"I don't think we're getting on with him very fast," remarked a young gentleman sitting opposite Katie, pointing significantly at a curve of the shore that they had not drifted out of sight of in the last half hour.

"At least he has roused us," returned the girl, "for I half believe I was sleepy before."

"I believe it wholly," answered Stephen, taking his seat beside her again and looking down into her face teazingly with a cousinly freedom. But it was not altogether a cousinly regard from which Katie drew back after a moment, tossing her head coquettishly, and with a heightened color, glancing past at her friend beyond him, who sat dipping one hand in the water and looking dreamily at the shore. Stephen Archdale and his cousin Katie lived within a few miles of each other, and there had always been constant intercourse between their families. When boy and girl, Stephen, four years the elder, the two had played together, and they had grown up, as people said, like brother and sister. But of late it was rumored that the conduct of young Archdale was more loverlike than brotherly, and that, if Katie choose, the tie between them would one day be closer than that of cousinhood. The stranger who sat opposite Archdale, watching them both in silence, was of the same opinion. He was rather portly for his age, which could not have been over thirty, and as he sat in the boat he looked a taller man than he proved to be when on his feet. His dark-brown beard was full, his eyes, like Archdale's, were in shadow, for he had drawn down his hat well over his brows, while Stephen and young Waldo sat bareheaded in the August air.

"I wonder"-began Katie.

"A sturgeon!" cried Mrs. Eveleigh, the last member of the party.

But the sound proved the soft dip of the paddle in the water as a canoe came toward them going down the stream. Its Indian occupant when he shot by turned his gaze stealthily upon the gay party.

"How many more of your red savages are there coming to spy upon us?" And the speaker pushed back his hat a trifle, and looked up and down the river with an anxiety that he could not quite conceal.

"You've not been out here long enough," laughed Waldo. "There's no danger; the red savages are friendly with us just at this moment, and will remain so until we forget our rifles some day, or they learn that we're short of ammunition. Shoot 'em down without mercy whenever they come spying about-it's the only way. They're friendly so long as they are afraid, and not a moment longer. For instance, why should that fellow stop? He saw three men whom he knew were armed, besides that young man who's pretending to sail the boat-why don't you do it, Kit?" and Waldo laughed good-humoredly at the lad whose office had become a sinecure. "When you get used to them, Mr. Harwin," he added, "they will not make you shiver."

"Oh, they don't do that now," returned the other, indifferently, "but, the ladies"-

"As to the ladies," laughed Katie, "one of them is quite fond of the red-skins; the other," glancing at her friend, "has gone into a brown study; I don't believe she's heard or seen anything for the last half hour. Elizabeth, when you fish up any pearls there out of the water, share them with us, won't you?"

"No, she'll do no such thing," interposed Mistress Eveleigh; "she'll give them all to you." The tone was so serious that Elizabeth cried, indignantly,-

"Cousin Patience, how can you?"

"I suppose she likes to tease you," retorted Katie, still laughing, "and so do I. It's so funny to see you wake out of a revery and find yourself."

"And not find myself, you mean," returned Elizabeth, joining in with a ripple of merriment.

"Master Waldo knows all about the red-skins," said Archdale to his opposite neighbor; "he had the pleasure of shooting one last winter."