And the Stanley girls who were her audience agreed with her, with a strong sense that to be the heroine of such an adventure was, after all, when it was over, one of the most delightful things in the world. Her father also agreed with her, who came stumping with his stick up the stairs, his own room being below, and took no greater delight than to sit by her bedside and hear her go over the story again and again. “I’ll sell that little beast of a boat. I’ll have her broken up for firewood. To think I should have paid such a lot of money for her, and her nearly to drown my little girl!” “Oh, don’t do that, papa,” said Stella; “when it’s quite safe and there is no wind I should like perhaps to go out in her again, just to see. But to be sure there was no wind when we went out--just a very little, just enough to fill the sail, they said; but you can never trust to a wind. I said I shouldn’t go, only just for ten minutes to try how I liked it; and then that horrid gale came on to blow, and they began to tack, as they call it. Such nonsense that tacking, papa! when they began it I said, ‘Why, we’re going further off than ever; what I want is to get home.’” “They paid no attention, I suppose--they thought they knew better,” said Mr. Tredgold. “They always think they know better,” cried Stella, with indignation. “And oh, when it came on to be dark, and the wind always rising, and the water coming in, in buckets full! Were you ever at sea in a storm, papa?” “Never, my pet,” said Mr. Tredgold, “trust me for that. I never let myself go off firm land, except sometimes in a penny steamboat, that’s dangerous enough. Sometimes the boilers blow up, or you run into some other boat; but on the sea, not if I know it, Stella.” “But I have,” said the girl. “A steamboat! within the two banks of a river! You know nothing, nothing about it, neither does Katherine. Some sailors, I believe, might go voyages for years and never see anything so bad as that night. Why, the waves were mountains high, and then you seemed to slide down to the bottom as if you were going--oh! hold me, hold me, papa, or I shall feel as if I were going again.” “Poor little Stella,” said Mr. Tredgold, “poor little girl! What a thing for her to go through, so early in life! But I’d like to do something to those men. I’d like to punish them for taking advantage of a child like that, all to get hold of my new boat, and show how clever they were with their tacking and all that. Confound their tacking! If it hadn’t been for their tacking she might have got back to dinner and saved us such a miserable night.” “What was your miserable night in comparison to mine?” cried Stella, scornfully. “I believe you both think it was as bad as being out at sea, only because you did not get your dinner at the proper time and were kept longer than usual out of bed.” “We must not forget,” said Katherine, “that after all, though they might be to blame in going out, these gentlemen saved her life.”