and how beautifully straight his legs are! What a shame that he should

not be a gentleman! He is ten times more like one than most of the

officers that used to come bothering me so. I wonder how far he means

to go? I do hope he won't make away with himself. It is almost enough

to make him do it, to be so insulted by his own father, and disgraced

before all the village, simply because he can't help having his poor

head so full of me! Nobody shall ever say that I did anything to give

him the faintest encouragement, because it would be so very wicked and

so cruel, considering all he has done for me. But if he comes back,

when his father is out of sight, and he has walked off his righteous

indignation, and all these people are gone to dinner, it might give a

turn to his thoughts if I were to put on my shell-colored frock and

the pale blue sash, and just go and see, on the other side of the

stepping-stones, how much longer they mean to be with that boat they

began so long ago."

CHAPTER X

ACROSS THE STEPPING-STONES

Very good boats were built at this time in the south of England, stout,

that is to say, and strong, and fit to ride over a heavy sea, and plunge

gallantly into the trough of it. But as the strongest men are seldom

swift of foot or light of turn, so these robust and sturdy boats must

have their own time and swing allowed them, ere ever they would come

round or step out. Having met a good deal of the sea, they knew, like

a man who has felt a good deal of the world, that heavy endurance

and patient bluffness are safer to get through the waves somehow than

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