“I knew a young man once,” began Aunt Wess’, “who had a boat⁠—that was when we lived at Kenwood and Mr. Wessels belonged to the Farragut ⁠—and this young man had a boat he called Fanchon . He got tipped over in her one day, he and the three daughters of a lady I knew well, and two days afterward they found them at the bottom of the lake, all holding on to each other; and they fetched them up just like that in one piece. The mother of those girls never smiled once since that day, and her hair turned snow white. That was in ’seventy-nine. I remember it perfectly. The boat’s name was Fanchon .”

“But that was a sail boat, Aunt Wess’,” objected Laura. “Ours is a steam yacht. There’s all the difference in the world.”