her son nor daughter to cheer him in
his widower life, but so was his Providence. Mine has been better. Son
is my hope and--and my anxiety. He's not found his right niche yet, poor
lad. There's a love of the sea in him, like his sailor father; but he's
never got over that tragedy of his father's death."

"Where did that happen, Mrs. Cook? Ephraim told me he was drowned,"
asked the visitor, sympathetically.

"Off Pollock Rip Shoals. A bad and fearsome place that, where many an
honest fellow has sunk to his last sleep." She dashed a tear from her
eye, and laid her hand for an instant upon her widow's cap. Then she
went on more cheerfully, as if time had taught her resignation: "But
that's a gone-by. Son's future isn't. It's laid upon me by the Lord to
be both father and mother to the boy and I must study what's for _his_
best, not mine. Ephraim wrote I was to consult you who are a Judge and
wise. He said in his letter that he hadn't been a sort of
general-utility-man in your office thus long without knowing it wasn't
your best paying clients that got your best advice. That, wrote Ephraim,
came out of your heart for the widows and orphans. We're that, son and
I, and--What a garrulous creature I am!"

All the time the little woman had been talking she had also been
preparing for the meal; and it now being ready to serve she stepped to
the rear door, opening on the place where the girls were sitting, and
announced:

"Our finnan haddie and greens are ready, young ladies, if you will come
and partake of it. Also, lest you be disappointed, I'll say that there's
a 'John's Delight' in the 'steamer,' and a dish of the best apples in
the Province for the sweeties. Eh? What, my dear?"

To Dorothy's utter amazement Molly was doing a very rude thing. She had
risen and made her very prettiest courtesy, but had supplemented this
act of respect by the petition:

"Please, Mrs. Cook, may we have ours out here, on these steps?"

"Why, Molly!" cried her chum, in reproof. "The idea of giving all that
trouble!"

"No trouble whatever, but a pleasure," replied the hostess, although
she, also, was surprised.

Molly wheeled upon Dorothy, demanding:

"Wouldn't you like it here? Could you find a lovelier place to eat in?
As for making trouble, I don't want to do that. I--If Mrs. Cook will
just put it on one plate I'll fetch it here for us both. It would be
like a picnic in a garden; and you could stay here and--and watch."

"Watch? Wha