"How's that for a tidy craft?" asked Mr. Brown. "Is she pretty shaped? How do you like her paint? Look at her nice little oars. Eight, she holds--nice-sized party eight is, sort o' cosy an' cheerful." The children looked from the boat to Mr. Brown and back again. Nobody thought any more of stilts or sewing-machines, or even of bull-dogs; the only thing on earth worth having at that moment was the wonderful boat around which they were standing. Her outer dress was of bright, dark green, with a scarlet line round the rim; inside she was pure white. A little railing of delicate iron scroll-work ran round her stern, and across it curved a board, with the boat's name in scarlet and gold: _The Belle of Canada._ "Do you mean--" Hugh began, but he was too overpowered to finish, because it was all very well to talk about cameras and things in the abstract, but that such a thing as a real, life-sized boat--and such a beautiful boat too--should fall into their hands in this casual way was too wildly improbable to be true. But it was true, nevertheless. That lovely little boat was really theirs! The way it happened was this, Mr. Brown explained: the year before--while the Campbells were in the hills--a little Canadian girl, visiting her Australian relations, had come with them to stay in the very cottage the Campbells were in now. She was very ill when she arrived. The doctors feared consumption, and said that open air all day long was the best medicine she could have. So the boat was bought--"and a fine price they paid for her too," Mr. Brown remarked--and the little girl was half her time on the sea, and got so sun-burnt and sturdy that before she left she was rowing the boat herself--"an' you'd never know she'd had a mite the matter with her," Mr. Brown said. When the time came for her to leave she took a fancy to give her boat to some other children, so that they might have as happy a summer with it as she had had. But it wasn't enough to give it in the usual way of giving--she made up the plan of the message in the bottle, which she left with Mr. Brown. "But I wasn't in no hurry," he said. "I kep' my eye on the cottage children. The last lot were a rampagin' set o' young ruffians, smashin' everything they set hands on. I soon saw that this chap was a different sort altogether, hammerin' an' tinkerin' away at his raft, and careful of her as if she was a lady--he's the sort for little Missie an' me, I said to myself, so in the bottle went, only an hour or two before you found it." "And suppose no one had found it, or the other bottle?" Dick suggested. "Not much danger o' that, with six pair o' sharp eyes an' inquisitive headpieces around," Mr. Brown answered, with a laugh. "The only bit I wasn't sure about was the Duke's Nose, for not many knows it by that name; but little Missie would have it--said it was more romantic like, though what's romantic about a duke's nose it beats me to see--just like any other nose, I don't mind bettin'."