The Yacht Club | Page 2

she could find on the piazza
of her father's elegant mansion in Belfast. She was as pretty as she was
bright and vivacious, and was a general favorite among the pupils of
the High School, which she attended. She was deeply absorbed in the
reading of a story in one of the July magazines, which had just come
from the post-office, when she heard a step near her. The sound startled
her, it was so near; and, looking up, she discovered the young man
whom she had spoken to close beside her. He was not Don John of
Austria, but Donald John Ramsay of Belfast, who had been addressed
by his companions simply as Don, a natural abbreviation of his first
name, until he of Austria happened to be mentioned in the history
recitation in school, when the whole class looked at Don, and smiled;
some of the girls even giggled, and got a check for it; but the
republican young gentleman became a titular Spanish hidalgo from that
moment. Though he was the son of a boat-builder, by trade a ship
carpenter, he was a good-looking, and gentlemanly fellow, and was
treated with kindness and consideration by most of the sons and
daughters of the wealthy men of Belfast, who attended the High School.
It was hardly a secret that Don John regarded Miss Nellie with especial
admiration, or that, while he was polite to all the young ladies, he was
particularly so to her. It is a fact, too, that he blushed when she turned
her startled gaze upon him on the piazza; and it is just as true that Miss
Nellie colored deeply, though it may have been only the natural
consequence of her surprise.
"I beg your pardon, Nellie; I did not mean to frighten you," replied
Donald.
"I don't suppose you did, Don John; but you startled me just as much as
though you had meant it," added she, with a pleasant smile, so
forgiving that the young man had no fear of the consequences. "How
terribly hot it is! I am almost melted."
"It is very warm," answered Donald, who, somehow or other, found it
very difficult to carry on a conversation with Nellie; and his eyes
seemed to him to be twice as serviceable as his tongue.

"It is dreadful warm."
And so they went on repeating the same thing over and over again, till
there was no other known form of expression for warm weather.
"How in the world did you get to the side of my chair without my
hearing you?" demanded Nellie, when it was evidently impossible to
say anything more about the heat.
"I came up the front steps, and was walking around on the piazza to
your father's library. I didn't see you till you spoke," replied Donald,
reminded by this explanation that he had come to Captain Patterdale's
house for a purpose. "Is Ned at home?"
"No; he has gone up to Searsport to stay over Sunday with uncle
Henry."
"Has he? I'm sorry. Is your father at home?"
"He is in his library, and there is some one with him. Won't you sit
down, Don John?"
"Thank you," added Donald, seating himself in a rustic chair. "It is very
warm this afternoon."
Nellie actually laughed, for she was conscious of the difficulties of the
situation--more so than her visitor. But we must do our hero--for such
he is--the justice to say, that he did not refer to the exhausted topic with
the intention of confining the conversation to it, but to introduce the
business which had called him to the house.
"It is intensely hot, Don John," laughed Nellie.
"But I was going to ask you if you would not like to take a sail," said
Donald, with a blush. "With your father, I mean," added he, with a
deeper blush, as he realized that he had actually asked a girl to go out in
a boat with him.
"I should be delighted to go, but I can't. Mother won't let me go on the

water when the sun is out, it hurts my eyes so," answered Nellie; and
the young man was sure she was very sorry she could not go.
"Perhaps we can go after sunset, then," suggested Donald. "I am sorry
Ned is not at home; for his yacht is finished, and father says the paint is
dry enough to use her. We are going to have a little trial trip in her over
to Turtle Head, and, perhaps, round by Searsport."
"Is the Sea Foam really done?" asked Nellie, her eyes sparkling with
delight.
"Yes, she is all ready, and father will deliver her to Ned on Monday, if
everything works right about her. I thought some of your folks,
especially Ned, would like