Whence had she come, and who was she? And
hereupon he remembered the old Bawn and its occupants. Had she seen him?
Unlikely; but yet, unimportant as it was, it remained an interesting and
open question in his mind. Bringing down the hair so ruffled in the idle
breeze, he crowded his hat over it with a determined air, half ran, half
tumbled, down the bank, sprang into his boat, and, shaking out a sail,
went flirting over the lake as fast as the wind could carry him. Leaving
a long, straight, shining wake behind him, Mr. Roger Raleigh skimmed
along the skin of ripples, and, in order to avoid a sound of shrill
voices, skirted the angle of an island, and found himself deceived by
the echo and in the midst of them.
Mrs. McLean, Miss Helen Heath, and Miss Mary Purcell, who had embarked
with a single pair of oars, were now shipwrecked on the waters wide, as
Helen said; for one of their means of progress, she declared, had been
snatched by the roaring waves and was floating in the trough of the sea,
just beyond their reach. None of the number being acquainted with the
process of sculling, they considered it imperative to secure the truant
tool, unless they wished to perish floating about unseen; and having
weighed the expediency of rigging Helen into a jury-mast, they were now
using their endeavors to regain the oar,--Mary Purcell whirling them
about like a maelstroem with the remaining one, and Mrs.
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