CHAPTER XIX--THE LOST TOY.
"Well," Joan said with a sigh, "I've shown you hustling American methods that succeed and get somewhere, and here you are beginning your muddling again." Five days had passed, and she and Sheldon were standing on the veranda watching the _Martha_, close-hauled on the wind, laying a tack off shore.
During those five days Joan had never once broached the desire of her heart, though Sheldon, in this particular instance reading her like a book, had watched her lead up to the question a score of times in the hope that he would himself suggest her taking charge of the _Martha_.

She had wanted him to say the word, and she had steeled herself not to say it herself.

The matter of finding a skipper had been a hard one.

She was jealous of the _Martha_, and no suggested man had satisfied her.
"Oleson ?" she had demanded.

"He does very well on the _Flibberty_, with me and my men to overhaul her whenever she's ready to fall to pieces through his slackness.