Mrs. Adams smiled quietly to herself as she saw the faint color creep up into Maisie’s cheek and hide itself under the dark ringlets of her hair. Then the girl looked up with charming frankness and said, “The Princess was there a few moments ago, but Harry has just gone out in her. See, he is almost down to Sheep Island now. He would have taken me, I think, if he had known I was at home.” Maisie looked straight into her mother’s eyes, and that was one of Maisie’s chief charms. She had a way of looking at you clearly and honestly, and you knew that you were looking down through pretty gray eyes into a heart that was as open and frank as it was sunny. “I should have been perfectly willing to have you go,” said her mother. “Harry is a very gentlemanly boy, and a good sailor. I think I can trust you with him.” “I think you can trust me with any of the boys I am willing to go sailing with, can you not, mamma?” said Maisie, and knowing it to be true, Mrs. Adams gave her daughter a little squeeze of affection and changed the subject. They sat and talked for a long time in the bright afternoon sun, while Maisie embroidered industriously, now and then glancing at the sail of the Princess, which had diminished to a little white speck over toward the mouth of the harbor, then grown again as her skipper headed toward home. By and by Mrs. Adams went into the house, and Maisie laid down her embroidery and strolled across the lawn and down the path toward the Adams’s boat-house. There she found none of the boats put into the water for the season except the smallest, a light little thing with one pair of oars. Maisie was a good oarsman, and she often rowed one or another of the boats up the placid reaches of the Fore River, above the bridge; so there was nothing uncommon in what she now did. Finding it ready for use, she got into the little skiff, cast off the painter, and was soon skimming with easy strokes under the bridge and away up-river. The bridge and the heights of land on either side of it soon hid the bay and the sail of the Princess from her sight, if not from her thoughts. There were plenty of interesting things to see up-river, and who shall say that she did not turn her whole attention to these? At any rate, she alternately rowed and floated for some time, and thoroughly enjoyed the vigorous exercise and the outing in the bright spring sunshine. By and by the ebbing tide carried her back toward the bridge, and she turned the bow of her skiff homeward just as the Princess, with the west wind in her sails, came nodding and curtsying up toward her mooring.