was
savoury with the smell of frying fish and crabs. The fisherman was not
to be tempted by appeals to stay, but smilingly disappeared down the
sands, the red glare of his torch making a glowing track in the water.

"Ah, Mees Annette," whispered Natalie, between mouthfuls of a rich
croaker, "you have found a beau in the water."

"And the fisherman of the Pass, too," laughed her cousin Ida.

Annette tossed her head, for Philip had growled audibly.

"Do you know, Philip," cried Annette a few days after, rudely shaking
him from his siesta on the gallery,--"do you know that I have found my
fisherman's hut?"

"Hum," was the only response.

"Yes, and it's the quaintest, most delightful spot imaginable. Philip,
do come with me and see it."

"Hum."

"Oh, Philip, you are so lazy; do come with me."

"Yes, but, my dear Annette," protested Philip, "this is a warm day, and
I am tired."

Still, his curiosity being aroused, he went grumbling. It was not a
very long drive, back from the beach across the railroad and through
the pine forest to the bank of a dark, slow-flowing bayou. The
fisherman's hut was small, two-roomed, whitewashed, pine-boarded, with
the traditional mud chimney acting as a sort of support to one of its
uneven sides. Within was a weird assortment of curios from every
uncivilized part of the globe. Also were there fishing-tackle and guns
in reckless profusion. The fisherman, in the kitchen of the
mud-chimney, was sardonically waging war with a basket of little bayou
crabs.

"Entrez, mademoiselle et monsieur," he said pleasantly, grabbing a
vicious crab by its flippers, and smiling at its wild attempts to bite.
"You see I am busy, but make yourself at home."

"Well, how on earth--" began Philip.

"Sh--sh--" whispered Annette. "I was driving out in the woods this
morning, and stumbled on the hut. He asked me in, but I came right over
after you."

The fisherman, having succeeded in getting the last crab in the kettle
of boiling water, came forward smiling and began to explain the curios.

"Then you have not always lived at Pass Christian," said Philip.

"Mais non, monsieur, I am spending a summer here."

"And he spends his winters, doubtless, selling fish in the French
market," spitefully soliloquised Philip.

The fisherman was looking unutterable things into Annette's eyes, and,
it seemed to Philip, taking an unconscionably long time explaining the
use of an East Indian stiletto.

"O