believed—but she did not even understand what he was saying.
He heard her pass behind him and enter her bedroom. When she returned, she had a parasol. "Shall we go down by the water, father Herrick?" she asked.
He let her lead him out to the esplanade at the water's edge where bathers hailed her and urged her to come in and "bring along your friend." A canoeist offered them cushioned seats in his craft; and when Fidelia thanked him and refused, father Herrick asked her: "You would accept, if I were not here?"
"Oh, probably," Fidelia said.
"We will both accept," he decided and when they were in the canoe, he made conversation of the tranquillity of the lake this morning in contrast to the fury to which it could be whipped in time of storm.
The canoeist, who was an agreeable boy of eighteen, said, "You speak as if you'd been on the lake when it reared up, sir."
"He has," Fidelia replied with pride. "He was at Northwestern when the students manned the coast guard station, day and night."
The boy looked over the black-suited man with more interest: "Have many wrecks, sir?"
Father Herrick said: "I will never forget one night . . ."
While he told how he had helped take off the crew of a ship sinking in a winter's storm, Fidelia watched his eyes shine; she felt he was happy in his recollection. He made no personal mention of himself until he related how, after the life-boat had been driven back
