Grace.

"All around us, my child; we are in it."

"Are we?" she asked, "I think it looks just like the sea; what's the
matter with it, Aunt Zoe?"

"Nothing, only it's too quiet; the great waves don't come rolling in and
breaking along the shore. I heard your father say so; it's here they
have the still bathing."

"Oh, yes, and papa is going to teach us to swim!" exclaimed Lulu; "I'm
so glad, for I like to learn how to do everything."

"That's right," her father said, with an approving smile; "learn all
you can, for 'knowledge is power.'"

They landed, the gentlemen presently secured a sufficient number of
hacks to comfortably accommodate the entire party, and after a cursory
view of the town, in a drive through several of its more important
streets, they started on the road to 'Sconset.

They found it, though a lonely, by no means an unpleasant, drive--a road
marked out only by rows of parallel ruts across wild moorlands, where
the ground was level or slightly rolling, with now and then some gentle
elevation, or a far-off glimpse of harbor or sea, or a lonely farmhouse.
The wastes were treeless, save for the presence of a few stunted
jack-pines; but these gave out a sweet scent, mingling pleasantly with
the smell of the salt-sea air; and there were wild roses and other
flowering shrubs, thistles and tiger-lilies and other wild flowers,
beautiful enough to tempt our travellers to alight occasionally to
gather them.

'Sconset was reached at length, three adjacent cottages found ready and
waiting for their occupancy, and they took possession.

The cottages stood on a high bluff overlooking miles of sea, between
which and the foot of the cliff stretched a low sandy beach a hundred
yards or more in width, and gained by flights of wooden stairs.

The cottages faced inland, and had each a little back yard, grassy, and
showing a few flowers, that reached to within a few yards of the edge of
the bluff. The houses were tiny, built low and strong, that they might
resist the fierce winds of winter in that exposed position, and shingled
all over to keep out the spray from the waves, which would penetrate any
other covering.

Dinner was engaged for our entire party at one of the hotels, of which
there were two; but as it yet wanted more than an hour of the time set
for the meal, all who were not too tired sallied forth to explore the
hamlet and its environs.

They found it to consist of about two hundred cottages, sim