and not until he stood outside on free ground in a narrow road, did he remember that he had forgotten to say good-bye to Josephine and had never even thanked her! This addition to all his other troubles made him turn and flee from the town, and he never stopped before he, by roundabout ways, had reached the high road. It was almost as if it were his property, this well-known road by the shore. Josephine stood still a moment gazing after the vanishing heels; but she did not wait long. She hopped upon the stone and slid down to the wall, pushed the boards aside, crept through and closed them again carefully behind her. Soon after she was seen at the apothecary's without her hat; she asked after her brother, first down in the shop where she knew he liked to be, but he was not there and he had not been in either to leave his bundle of books. Upstairs she went through all the rooms, but he was not there; then looking out of the window she saw the great foreign steamer and ten or twelve small boats around it; of course he would be there! Away she flew to the pier, unfastened their own little white-painted boat and pushed off. She rowed until the perspiration streamed down her face, rowed and looked about her until she reached the wreck, the great green monster lying there groaning under the pumps. From afar she could see Edward up on the captain's bridge, with his books under his arm, talking to his friend Mo, the pilot. As soon as she was within call she shouted his name; he heard her, he and all the others; they saw a brown-haired girl, without hat, red and heated with rowing, standing up in the boat, leaning on her oars, and staring up at the captain's bridge; they did not think much of it, though, and forgot her quickly. But Edward felt a sharp pang; something out of the common must have happened, and it did not take him long to get down from the captain's bridge on to the deck, across the deck and down the steamer's side, climbing over the other boats and up into hers, exclaiming, as he pushed off: "What's the matter?" He put his books down in the bottom of the boat, took the oars from her and sat down repeating: "What's the matter?" With streaming hair, breathless and red she stood and looked at him as he turned the boat; then she moved back to a farther bench. Here she unfastened the other pair of oars and sat down behind him. He did not like to question her a third time so he rowed on silently--and then, keeping her oars on the surface of the water meanwhile, she began: "What have you done to Ole Tuft?" He turned pale, then red; he too stopped rowing. "It's all up with him now at school; he has gone home, and he'll never come back any more." "Oh, that's a lie!"--but his voice failed him, he felt she was speaking the truth. He plunged the oars into the water with all his strength and rowed with might and main.