This rather ungracious consent was sufficient to dry Winnie's tears and silence Winnie's lungs, and the three seated themselves in the little boat, and started off in high spirits. It was a light, pretty boat, painted in bright colors, and christened _The Dipper_, it being an appropriate and respectful title for a boat on the Kleiner Berg _Basin_. Moreover, the air was as sweet as a May-flower, and as warm as sunshine; there was a soft, blue sky with clouds of silver like stately ships sailing over it, and such a shimmering, bright photograph of it in the water; then Tom was so pleasant, and rowed so fast, and let Gypsy help, and she could keep time with him, and the spray dashed up like silver-dust about the oars, and the bees were humming among the buds on the trees, and the blue dragon-flies, that skipped from ripple to ripple, seemed to be having such a holiday. Altogether, Gypsy felt like saying, with famous little Prudy,-- "Oh, I'm so glad there happened to be a world, and God made me!" After a while Tom laid down his oars, and they floated idly back and forth among the lily-stems and the soft, purple shadows of the maple-boughs, from which the perfumed scarlet blossoms dropped like coral into the water. Tom took off his cap, and leaned lazily against the side of the boat; Winnie, interested in making a series of remarkable faces at himself in the water, for a wonder sat still, and Gypsy lay down across two seats, with her face turned up watching the sky. It was very pleasant, and no one seemed inclined to talk. "I wish I were a cloud," said Gypsy, suddenly, after a long silence. "A little white cloud, with a silver fringe, and not have anything to do but float round all day in the sunshine,--no lessons nor torn dresses nor hateful old sewing to do." "S'posin' it thunder-stormed," suggested Winnie. "You might get striked." "That would be fun," said Gypsy, laughing. "I always wanted to see where the lightning came from." "Supposing there came a wind, and blew you away," suggested Tom, sleepily. "I never thought of that," said Gypsy. "I guess I'd rather do the sewing." Presently a little scarlet maple-blossom floated out on the wind, and dropped right into Gypsy's mouth (which most unpoetically happened to be open). "Just think," said Gypsy, whose thoughts seemed to have taken a metaphysical turn, "of being a little red flower, that dies and drops into the water, and there's never any fruit nor anything,--I wonder what it was made for." "Perhaps just to make you ask that question," answered Tom; and there was a great deal more in the answer than Tom himself supposed. This was every solitary word that was said on that boat-ride. A little is so much better than much, sometimes, and goes a great deal further. It seemed to Gypsy the pleasantest boat-ride she had ever taken; but Tom became tired of it before she did, and went up to the house, carrying Winnie with him. Gypsy stayed a little while to row by herself.