ing around and drawing a deep breath, as if critically to test the atmosphere.

"We don't think it damp at all. I have a little fire lighted every evening in the Franklin. I am so glad there is a Franklin."

"Ah, you like it?" he said. "I had the chimney opened, and that stove brought down from the attic; the old people who owned the house had stuffed up the chimney, and put in an air-tight."

"And isn't that little corner cupboard in the diningroom nice?" I said. "Don't you want to come and

look at the dining-room?"

So we went into the dining-room, and I showed them the cupboard and the little, long, narrow closet by the walled-up fireplace, and all the improvements that I had made in the arrangement of things. I am afraid the dining-room, so called, was a dismal old hole, but I liked it very much, and said so.

"Ah," cried Mrs. Emlyn, shrugging her shoulders, "I don't want any old houses to live in. I should smother in this room. Why don't you take the sashes of the windows out? They don't open more than five inches. If it weren't for being afraid of the rain I should take the sashes out."

She was much interested in everything, but she kept outside the door and did not do more than look in. "You need some more china," said the colonel. "Penelope, can't we spare some of that old blue, like this?"

"Oh, I don't know anything about the china. Ask Rachel, she can tell you. I do not think, myself, there is any more than we can use.'

While I was protesting, frightened, that I didn't

need any more china, she explained herself with gestures. "You know there isn't any use in promising what we haven't got. It is just like a man to make promises. My own impression is we are rather short of blue, but if we're not, there's no objection to your having what you want. Only there's no use in making promises."

The colonel didn't seem to mind at all, and said, "We'll see," and then fell to promising me some more piazza chairs, when we walked out there; and Mrs. Emlyn said there was a hammock that was not being used, if I cared for having it. She did not seem to be exactly consistent about promising, for she pledged herself to send me, besides the hammock, an extra mattress and two tables.

"You might as well have them," she said. "They're doing nobody any good, and lumbering up the attic."

That took off the load of the obligation, certainly. The colonel walked about, quite as if it were his house, which seemed odd to me. He was a short, rather thin

an, with a prominent nose, kind blue eyes, bushy eyebrows, a high forehead, and grizzled hair that curled yet. One feels as if grizzled hair would have forgotten to curl, particularly when it is thin on the top. He had an alert manner, but in some way gave you the idea of philosophic quiet. He dressed with scrupulous neatness, but in rather old style. When they went away I accompanied them to the gate, and felt as if we were old friends. The children, not perceiving the august visitors, came running around the corner of the house.

"Ah!" Mrs. Emlyn said, looking at them, "these are the children? They are very pretty, the eldest one particularly. I am sorry that they're not old enough for Naomi."

།

But the colonel took them up and talked to them, and seemed to like them. When they got in the carriage Mrs. Emlyn leaned out and said, "We'll send you the things when the man can be spared to bring them. And must come and see us you if aren't the right age, any of you."

you

And then she laughed again, and they drove away.

CHAPTER IV.

A

beach,

DAY or two after that I went down to the with Sophia and the children, for the whole afternoon. Sophia took the children and sat behind the bank, and turned her back to the ocean, which she despised, and sewed. The children naturally did not stay with her, but wandered over to where I sat, close by the waves, with a great gray blanket spread out on the sand, enveloped in shawls. It was the first warm day of the season, but the wind was strong, and cool enough to make all the shawls acceptable, sitting still. Sitting still, and doing nothing," I knew that was what Sophia was saying to herself testily as she pricked her fingers and looked over the bank at me. That was always what I seemed to be doing. Considering that the children's summer clothes were not even yet cut out, perhaps it was rather shiftless. But I was not thinking about the children's summer clothes, nor yet their winter ones. What was I thinking of as I sat there hour by hour, while the great waves broke at my feet, sucking the sand back in their retreat, and then spread

ing it smooth again before me, while the little bubbles burst up through it, and the sand fleas scampered across it? I watched the blue horizon, across which, at far intervals, a white sail drifted. I gazed up and down the long stretch of beach, lonely and bare, and noted, at either point, where my vision ended, the pillar of cloud that the spray made against the far sky. I don't think a sand-piper ran along the sand that I did not notice, nor that a gull swept above the blue tide that I did not follow out of sight, nor that a wave broke at my feet that I did not curiously scan. I did not think about the past; I did not speculate upon the future; I had no great thoughts such as the sea seems to give to others; I did not want any one to read or talk to me; I did not want to read or talk myself; I liked to see the children playing a little way from ine, but it annoyed me to have them come and prattle by me, and make demands upon my attention. When a great wave, green and crystal, came thundering in from sea, and burst upon the beach, I had no greater thoughts than speculation whether the next incoming one would be as high and would rush up as far upon the sand. I made a pillow for myself of a shawl; I drew another over me; it was delicious and the sun shone warm; I lay content and idle while the half hours lapsed away. I don't know whether it was exactly right to be so vacant and indolent, but it seemed just the medicine for my sick and thought-sore mind.

The afternoon wore away; the children were still busy at a great hole which they had spent two hours in making broad and deep, when I idly saw them reinforced by a third child—a tall, slight, girl of twelve, perhaps, with a great profusion of yellowish-brown hair upon