w any better."

"How funny it seems!" remarked Candace, half to herself, with her eyes
on the distance, which was rapidly closing in with mist.

"What is funny?"

"Oh, I was--I was only thinking how funny it is that there should be a
fashion about coming down to such a beautiful place as this."

"I don't see how it is funny."

"Yes," persisted Candace, who, for all her shyness, had ideas and
opinions of her own; "because the Cliffs are so old and have always been
here, and I suppose some of the people who make it the fashion not to
walk upon them have only just come to Newport."

"I really think you are the queerest girl I ever saw," said Gertrude.

A long silence ensued. Each of the two girls was thinking her own
thoughts. The thickening on the horizon meanwhile was increasing. Thin
films of vapor began to blow across the sky. The wind stirred and grew
chill; the surf on the beach broke with a low roar which had a menacing
sound. Suddenly a wall of mist rose and rolled rapidly inland, blotting
out all the blue and the smile of sky and sea.

"Gracious! here's the fog," cried Gertrude, "and I do believe it's going
to rain. We must hurry home. I rather think mamma's storm is coming,
after all."

CHAPTER IV.

THE MANUAL OF PERFECT GENTILITY.

MRS. GRAY'S storm had indeed come. All the next day it rained, and the
day after it rained harder, and on the third day came a thick fog; so it
was not till the very end of the week that Newport lay again in clear
sunshine.

The first of the wet days Cannie spent happily in the society of Miss
Evangeline and Mr. Hiawatha, two new acquaintances of whom she felt that
she could scarcely see enough. Marian found her sitting absorbed on the
staircase bench, and after peeping over her shoulder at the pictures for
a while, begged her to read aloud. It was the first little bit of
familiar acquaintance which any of the younger members of the Gray
family had volunteered, and Candace was much pleased.

Marian was not yet quite fourteen, and was still very much of a child at
heart and in her ways. Her "capable" little face did not belie her
character. She was a born housekeeper, always tidying up and putting
away after other people. Everything she attempted she did exactly and
well. She was never so happy as when she was allowed to go into the
kitchen to make molasses candy or try her hand at cake; and her cake was
almost always good, and her candy "pulled" to admiration.