ld be delighted to go. Georgie and I would make her a
call together some afternoon when he wasn't busy; and Georgie actually
smiled when I looked at him, and said, "All right," and then hurried
off down the shore. "Ain't he an odd boy?" said Miss Hannah West, with
a shadow of disapproval in her face. "But he's just like his father
and grandfather before him; you wouldn't think they had no gratitude
nor feelin', but I s'pose they have. They used to say my father
never'd forgit a friend, or forgive an enemy. Well, I'm much obliged
to you, I'm sure, for taking an interest in the boy." I said I liked
him: I only wished I could do something for him. And then she said
good-day, and drove off. I felt as if we were already good friends.
"I'm much obliged for the fish," she turned round to say to me again,
as she went away.

One morning, not long afterward, I asked Georgie if he could possibly
leave his business that afternoon, and he gravely answered me that he
could get away just as well as not, for the tide would not be right for
lobsters until after supper.

"I should like to go up and see your aunt," said I. "You know she
asked me to come the other day when she was here.

"I'd like to go," said Georgie sedately. "Father was going up this
week; but the mackerel struck in, and we couldn't leave. But it's
better'n six miles up there."

"That's not far," said I. "I'm going to have Captain Donnell's horse
and wagon;" and Georgie looked much interested.

I wondered if he would wear his oil-skin suit; but I was much amazed,
and my heart was touched, at seeing how hard he had tried to put
himself in trim for the visit. He had on his best jacket and trousers
(which might have been most boys' worst), and a clean calico shirt; and
he had scrubbed his' freckled, honest little face and his hard little
hands, until they were as clean as possible; and either he or his
father had cut his hair. I should think it had been done with a knife,
and it looked as if a rat had gnawed it. He had such a holiday air!
He really looked very well; but still, if I were to have a picture of
George, it should be in the oil-skin fishing-suit. He had gone out to
his box, which was anchored a little way out in the cove, and had
chosen two fine lobsters which he had tied together with a bit of
fish-line. They were lazily moving their claws and feelers; and his
father, who had come in with his boat not long before, added from his
fare of