s which made the child timid about
confessing the loss of the pin. As she thought about the trip to Green
Island with a strange little boy to whom she had never even spoken
before that day, it seemed a monstrous undertaking, and for a moment
she quailed before the prospect. Yet what joy if she should return
with the precious pin and be able to restore it without a word of
censure from any one. This thought decided her to follow when Ellis
beckoned to her. Big Parker Dixon smiled and nodded from where he was
unloading shining mackerel and big gaping cod, and Mary knew his
consent had been given.

"It is a very smelly place," she remarked as she picked her way along
the wet fish-house floor.

Ellis laughed. "That's what you summer folks think; we like it."

"Fancy liking it," said Mary, then feeling that perhaps that did not
show a proper attitude toward one so kind as Ellis, she hastened to
say, "No doubt it is a lovely smell, you know, and if I were an
American perhaps I should prefer it, but I am English, you see."

"That's what makes you talk so funny," said Ellis bluntly.

"Oh, really, do I talk funny? I can't help it, can I, if I am English?"

"Oh, some of the folks that live other places not so far away think we
talk funny," Ellis went on to say.

"Do they? Then there is as much difference in liking ways of talking
as in the kind of smells you like. Now, I never could bear the smell
of onions cooking, and yet nurse says they smell so 'earty and
happetizing; she drops her h's, you know."

Ellis stared. He had never heard of dropping h's, but he was too wise
to say so. "I'll go get the _Leona_," he said by way of changing the
subject. "That's the name of my brother's boat; he named it after his
wife. You'd better come on down to Cap'n Dave's wharf; it is easier
getting aboard there."

Mary followed down a winding path to the shore of the cove and waited
on the pebbly sands till the boat was shoved up and then she waveringly
stepped in, fearfully sat down where Ellis directed, and in a moment
his sturdy young arms were pulling at the oars. The deed was done and
Mary felt as if she had cast away every shred of home influence. What
would Miss Sharp say to see her? Polly wouldn't hesitate to do such a
thing, she reflected, and after all she was in America which was a
perfectly free country, so Molly and Polly were always telling her,
then why not do as she chose? So she settled herself more comf