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The girl glanced back once more.

"How smoothly we go," she said. "We are lucky to have so fine a breeze from the north."

"It will hold," her companion replied. "We shall be at home in another hour."

The old man, glancing to left and right as he steered, let his eyes rest fondly upon the figure of the girl from time to time, seeming to deny himself the privilege at one moment that he might enjoy it the more a moment later. After a long silence he spoke again.

"Naia, a strange thing has happened these past few weeks."

"Strange? What is it?"

"It is of yourself I speak. You do not know, perhaps, but your mother must have seen."

"But what are you telling me?"

"You have changed of a sudden. You are no longer a child."

The girl smiled back at him. "Well? And what is there strange about that?"

"Only yesterday you were a baby; so it seems to me. Do you remember how you would ride on my shoulder with your little fingers fast in my hair? Happy days they were!"

"Happier than these, you think?"

"No; only different.... Then, before I knew, almost, the baby was a little girl needing me no longer; proud to do everything for herself."