was not there, I wished to cover my face with my handkerchief.
By the third beach I was ready for the madhouse."

"Is Oldport a pleasant place to live in?" asked Emilia, eagerly.

"It is amusing in the summer," said Aunt Jane, "though the society is
nothing but a pack of visiting-cards. In winter it is too dull for young
people, and only suits quiet old women like me, who merely live here to
keep the Ten Commandments and darn their stockings."

Meantime the children were aiming at Emilia, whose butterfly looks
amazed and charmed them, but who evidently did not know what to do with
their eager affection.

"I know about you," said little Helen; "I know what you said when you
were little."

"Did I say anything?" asked Emilia, carelessly.

"Yes," replied the child, and began to repeat the oft-told domestic
tradition in an accurate way, as if it were a school lesson. "Once you
had been naughty, and your papa thought it his duty to slap you, and you
cried; and he told you in French, because he always spoke French with
you, that he did not punish you for his own pleasure. Then you stopped
crying, and asked, 'Pour le plaisir de qui alors?' That means 'For whose
pleasure then?' Hope said it was a droll question for a little girl to
ask."

"I do not think it was Emilia who asked that remarkable question, little
girl," said Kate.

"I dare say it was," said Emilia; "I have been asking it all my life."
Her eyes grew very moist, what with fatigue and excitement. But just
then, as is apt to happen in this world, they were all suddenly recalled
from tears to tea, and the children smothered their curiosity in
strawberries and cream.

They sat again beside the western door, after tea. The young moon came
from a cloud and dropped a broad path of glory upon the bay; a black
yacht glided noiselessly in, and anchored amid this tract of splendor.
The shadow of its masts was on the luminous surface, while their
reflection lay at a different angle, and seemed to penetrate far below.
Then the departing steamer went flashing across this bright realm with
gorgeous lustre; its red and green lights were doubled in the paler
waves, its four reflected chimneys chased each other among the reflected
masts. This jewelled wonder passing, a single fishing-boat drifted
silently by, with its one dark sail; and then the moon and the anchored
yacht were left alone.

Presently some of the luggage came from the wharf. Malbone brought
out presents f