They had already passed a half dozen of similar
settlements. Very dirty children ran about crying, ugly, old women
knitted, mongrel dogs and cats barked and yelped and rolled in the mud.
Bits of orange-peel and old cabbage and other refuse food lay piled near
the doors. There were, to be sure, young girls with dark eyes, plaiting
straw, and the very dirt heaps had a picturesque sort of air. An artist
might linger a moment to look, but never to enter. Yet it was here that
Mae must enter. This was her new home. The neighbors came crowding about
curiously, and she was hurried into the little hut that seemed as if
it were carved roughly from some big garlic, probably by taking out the
heart of it for dinner. Mae hardly comprehended the situation at first,
but when she began to realize that this was a substitute for sea breeze,
and that the coarse clipped patois (which sounded worse in the mass
than when it fell from Lisetta's lips alone) was in place of the flowing
melody of speech she had longed for, she grew sick at heart. The folly,
the dreadfulness of what she had done, swept over her like a flood, and
with it came dreadful fear. She was helpless,--an outcast. Pride would
never let her go home. She could go nowhere else. They had her money,
and here she must live and die. She sat down in a sort of stupor, and
paid no heed to the squabbling children who pulled at her gown, or the
dogs who sniffed snappingly at the stranger.

Lisetta, busy with greetings and chattings, quite forgot her for a time,
and was dismayed when she saw her sitting disconsolately by. "Come,
Signorina," she cried, "go down to the bay. Here is Talila; she will
guide you."

Mae looked up quickly at that. Talila, was she here? A few feet from her
she saw an uncouth woman, with that falling of the jaw most imbeciles
possess, and a vacancy in her eyes. She had her hand raised and was
swearing at one of the children. "Talila," repeated Mae, rubbing her
eyes, and shivering, "but I thought Talila would be different. You said
she loved children, but this woman swears at them."

"O, dear, we all swear at them, but we love them; you shall see how they
follow her. Talila, off with you and your babies." And the next moment
there was a general scamper of brown children headed by this tall,
vacant-looking woman. "Take the lady to the sea," continued Lisetta. And
Mae arose, as if in a dream, and followed them.

The half-clad children of the sun ran before her as