"I hope," she
said quietly, "that you may have a pleasant winter. It will be
delightful, won't it, Charlie?"
"Oh, very!" I answered, but half noting the under-meaning of her
words, my mind running on deck state-rooms and the like.
"Charlie," said Miss Meyrick suddenly, "do you remember what happened
two years ago to-day?"
"No, I think not."
Taking out a little book bound in Russia leather and tipped with gold,
she handed it to Bessie, who ran her eye down the page: it was open at
September 28th.
"Read it," said Fanny, settling herself composedly in her shawl, and
leaning back against a tree with half-shut eyes.
"'_September 28th_'" Bessie read, in clear tones which had a strange
constraint in them, "'Charlie Munro saved my life. I shall love him
for ever and ever. We were out in a boat, we two, on the
Hudson--moonlight--I was rowing. Dropt my oar into the water. Leaned
out after it and upset the boat. Charlie caught me and swam with me to
shore.'"
A dead silence as Bessie closed the book and held it in her hand.
"Oh," said I lightly, "that isn't worth chronicling--that! It was no
question of saving lives. The New York boat was coming up, if I
remember."
"Yes, it was in trying to steer away from it that I dropped my oar."
"So you see it would have picked us up, any how. There was nothing but
the ducking to remember.
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