k a step toward
them, but stopped suddenly.

"I fear 'twould not be wise for me to stop," she said a little
fearfully; but before she could say anything more Anna and Luretta had
jumped up and ran toward her.

"Look!" exclaimed Anna, pointing to a flock of white gulls that had just
settled on the smooth water near the shore.

"Look, Melly, at the fine partridges!"

Melvina's dark eyes looked in the direction Anna pointed. "Thank you,
Anna. How white they are, and what a queer noise they make," she
responded seriously.

Anna's eyes danced with delight as she heard Luretta's half-repressed
giggle at Melvina's reply. She resolved that Luretta should realize of
how little importance Melvina Lyon, with all her dolls, and her starched
skirts like wheels, really was.

"And are those not big alder trees, Melly?" she continued, pointing to a
group of fine pine trees near by.

Again Melvina's eyes followed the direction of Anna's pointing finger,
and again the minister's little daughter replied politely that the trees
were indeed very fine alders.

Luretta was now laughing without any effort to conceal her amusement.
That any little girl in Maine should not know a partridge from a gull,
or an alder bush from a pine tree, seemed too funny to even make it
necessary to try to be polite; and Luretta was now ready to join in the
game of finding out how little Melvina Lyon, "the smartest and
best-behaved child in the settlement," really knew.

"And, Danna, perhaps Melvina has never seen the birds we call clams?"
she suggested.

Melvina looked from Anna to Luretta questioningly. These little girls
could not be laughing at her, she thought, recalling with satisfaction
that it was well known that she could spell the names of every city in
Europe, and repeat the list of all England's kings and queens. She
remembered, also, that Anna Weston was called a tomboy, and that her
mother said it was a scandal for a little girl to have short hair. So
she again replied pleasantly that she had never known that clams were
birds. "We have them stewed very often," she declared.

Anna fairly danced about the neat little figure in the well-starched
blue linen skirt.

"Oh, Melly! You must come down to the shore, and we will show you a
clam's nest," she said, remembering that only yesterday she had
discovered the nest of a kingfisher in an oak tree whose branches nearly
touched the shore, and could point this out to the ignorant Melvina.