posite shore came the far sweet sound of a woman's voice
singing as she worked, as if a long-looked-for day had come and held
great joy for her. She was singing just as the birds sing, and Betty
tried to fancy how she looked as she went to and fro so busily in one of
the farm-houses.

Aunt Barbara did not wake until after Betty, which was a great joy, and
there was a peal of delighted laughter from the girls when she waked and
found their bright young eyes watching her. She complained of nothing,
except a moment of fright when she saw her own bonnet at the top of a
lopped fir which had been stuck into the ground at the foot of the bed,
to hang her raiment on. Her wrap had been put neatly round the tree's
shoulders by Betty, so that it looked like a queer sort of skeleton
creature with every sort of garment on its sharp pegs of bones. Nobody
had taken the least bit of cold, and everybody was as cheerful as
possible, and so the day began. Seth Pond had trudged off to get some
milk at one of the farm-houses, and had lighted a fire before he went
and covered it with bits of dry turf, which served to keep it in as well
as peat. Mr. Leicester complained that he had found the tent too warm,
and so had rolled himself in his blanket and spent the night in the open
air. Evidently he and Harry Foster had been awake some time, and they
were having a famous talk about one of the treasured creatures in the
muddy wooden pail. Harry had managed to learn a great deal by spending
an hour now and then in a famous old library in Riverport, in which Miss
Leicester had given him the use of her share; and Betty knew that her
father was delighted and surprised with the young man's interest in his
own favorite studies. She had felt sure all summer that papa would know
just how to help Harry Foster on, and as she watched them she could not
help thinking that she wished Harry were her brother. But then she would
no longer have entire right to papa.

"Come, Elizabeth Leicester!" said papa, in high spirits. "I never had
such a dilatory damsel to make my first tent breakfast!" So Betty
hastened, and poked the fire nearly to death in her desire for
promptness with the morning meal. After it was over Miss Leicester sat
in the shade with a book, while all the rest went fishing and took a
long sail seaward beside.

That evening they went home with the tide, in great delight, every one.
Aunt Barbara was unduly proud of her exploits and a sunburnt nose,