d begin all over again. I should not mind it if I could see
that I made any progress, but I do not. I can't let it alone, though,
for the most happy hours I have are when I'm painting."

"You certainly have perseverance," responded Albert encouragingly, "and
the pictures you have shown me seem very life-like. I wish I could do as
well. You have done good work for one self-taught as you are, and you
have no reason to be discouraged."

Then Uncle Terry came in and announced dinner. It was rather a state
affair for the Terry household, and the table bore their best dinner
service, with a vase of flowers in the centre.

"I hope ye feel hungry," said Uncle Terry, as he passed a well-filled
plate to Albert, "for we live plain, and it's good appetite as makes
good vittles. I s'pose ye are used ter purty high livin'?"

"Whatever tastes good is good," replied Albert, and turning to Aunt
Lissy he added, "This fried lobster beats anything I have tasted for a
long time."

When the meal was over he handed the box of cigars he had brought to his
host with the remark, "Please accept these, Mr. Terry, and when you
smoke them, think of the forlorn fellow you found by the wayside."

"I've got ter leave ye ter th' tender marcies o' the wimmin folks," said
Uncle Terry, after thanking Albert, "for I've got work to do, and
to-night we'll have a visit. I hope you'll be willin' to stay with us a
day or two," he added, "an' to-morrow I'll take ye out fishin'."

"I will stay until to-morrow, thank you," replied Albert, "and it will
be a treat to me, I assure you."

It was a new departure for him to find so cordial a welcome among total
strangers, and he could not quite understand it. He was not inclined to
quarrel with fate, however, especially when it had thrown him into the
society of such people. It is needless to say the "tender marcies" of at
least one of them were quite to his taste.

"I should like to row up to where I was left boat-less yesterday," he
said to Telly after Uncle Terry had gone, "and finish the sketch I
began, and also try to find the cushions I dropped in the woods; may I
ask you to go too?"

"I should be glad to if mother can spare me," she answered.

When he rowed out of the little harbor where he had left his boat, Telly
sat in the stern holding the tiller ropes, and shading her winsome face
was the same broad sun-hat he had seen on the rock beside her the
evening before. It was a long four-mile pull, but he