CHAPTER Fifteen--An Old Acquaintance Turns Up.
A year had stolen by since the death of Binny Wallace--a year of which I have nothing important to record.
The loss of our little playmate threw a shadow over our young lives for many and many a month.

The Dolphin rose and fell with the tide at the foot of the slippery steps, unused, the rest of the summer.

At the close of November we hauled her sadly into the boat-house for the winter; but when spring came round we launched the Dolphin again, and often went down to the wharf and looked at her lying in the tangled eel-grass, without much inclination to take a row.

The associations connected with the boat were too painful as yet; but time, which wears the sharp edge from everything, softened this feeling, and one afternoon we brought out the cobwebbed oars.
The ice once broken, brief trips along the wharves--we seldom cared to go out into the river now--became one of our chief amusements.

Meanwhile Gypsy was not forgotten.