down the bank and
skirting the shore till she reached the spot where the boat lay.

"I'll row you over to Jones's Island, if you'd like to go. 'Tain't but
a little way. There's lots of strawberries there," the boy said.

This was a temptation Mary considered. The afternoon was but half
gone; the evenings were long, and the sailing party would not return
before sunset. They enjoyed most of all the coming home when sea and
sky were a glory of color and light. It would be a delightful way to
pass the remainder of the afternoon, and to carry home a lot of berries
for supper would be an excuse to Luella for her long absence. "What
will we get the berries in?" she asked Ellis, when her thoughts had
traveled thus far.

"I'll run up to the store and get some of those little empty fruit
boxes; Jim'll give 'em to me. I saw a pile of 'em lying outside. You
wait here." So Mary waited. If it should be discovered that she had
gone off with Ellis in the _Leona_, she would at least have the berries
as an evidence of what they had gone for. Mary was getting more and
more crafty.

The end of it all was that they did row over to Jones's Island. A
barren looking, uninhabited spot it seemed from a distance. Barren of
trees it was, but when one once reached it there were great patches of
strawberries, clumps of wild roses and bayberry bushes, pinky-white
clover, deliciously sweet, tiny wild white violets and many other
lovely things. Then, too, it was the haunt of birds which,
undisturbed, had built their nests there year after year.

It did not take long to pick as many berries as they could eat and as
many as they wanted to carry away, and then when the sky was shining
gold and pink and blue above and the water shining blue and pink and
gold beneath, they started home, reaching there just as Luella,
standing on the porch, was watching earnestly for the little girl's
return. Ellis had parted from his companion at the point where their
roads separated. His supper hour was over long ago, though he did not
say so, his parting words being: "I'll let you know first thing if I
hear anything of the breastpin."

"Thank you so much," said Mary. "I cannot tell you how much I have
enjoyed the afternoon."

"I thought maybe you'd stayed at the Whartons' for supper," said
Luella, as Mary came up. "Land's sake, where did you get all them
berries? I know you didn't get 'em about here. There, now, I said I
seen you to Green's.