This morning I did not read. I sat looking down into the water from my perch, carrying on the inward discussion of the night before, and wishing that breakfast-time were come, that I might try my strength and show that I was not to be put down by any assumption of superiority, when suddenly a voice near me made me start so that I almost lost my balance. Mr. Hammond was standing beneath. He laughed, and held out his hand to help me down; but I sprang past him and was on my way to the house, when suddenly my brave resolutions came back to my mind, and I stood still with a feeling of defiance. I wondered what he would dare to say. Would he tell me how stupid he thought us all, how like the very pigs we lived? or would he describe his own grand house and the great places he had seen? I scowled up sullenly. "Will you tell me where to find a towel, that I may wash my face here by the river-side?" I laughed aloud, and with that laugh fled my sullenness. He looked a little puzzled, but went on,-- "I went to bed so early that I cannot sleep any longer; and if I could only find some way of getting across the river, I could get things under way a little before my men come up." There were ways, then, in which I could help him,--he was not so immeasurably above me,--and down went my defiant spirit. The towel, a crash roller, luckily clean, was brought at once, and, gathering courage as I stood by and saw him finish his washing, I said,-- "I can scull you over the river in a few minutes, if you will go in our skiff." "You? can you manage that shell of a thing? will your father let you take it, Miss Boarders?" "My name is Janet Rainsford, and Squire Boarders is not my father," said I, some of my sullenness returning. "If you will take me, Janet," said he, with the frank, open-hearted tone which had won my step-father the night before,--a tone before which my sullenness melted.