er,--and I liked her. She said something to her brother
about some clothes she had been making for him or for Georgie, and I
went off to the house where I was boarding for my breakfast. I was
hungry enough, since I had had only a hurried lunch a good while
before sunrise. I came back late in the morning, and found that
Georgie's aunt was just going away. I think my friends must have
spoken well of me, for she came out to meet me as I nodded in going
by, and said, "I suppose ye drive about some? We should be pleased to
have ye come up to see us. We live right 'mongst the woods; it ain't
much of a place to ask anybody to." And she added that she might have
done a good deal better for herself to have staid off. But there! they
had the place, and she supposed she and Cynthy had done as well there
as anywhere. Cynthy--well, she wasn't one of your pushing kind; but I
should have some flowers, and perhaps it would be a change for me. I
thanked her, and said I should be delighted to go. Georgie and I would
make her a call together some afternoon when he wasn't busy; and
Georgie actually smiled when I looked at him, and said, "All right,"
and then hurried off down the shore. "Ain't he an odd boy?" said Miss
Hannah West, with a shadow of disapproval in her face. "But he's just
like his father and grandfather before him; you wouldn't think they
had no gratitude nor feelin', but I s'pose they have. They used to say
my father never'd forgit a friend, or forgive an enemy. Well, I'm much
obliged to you, I'm sure, for taking an interest in the boy." I said I
liked him; I only wished I could do something for him. And then she
said good-day, and drove off. I felt as if we were already good
friends. "I'm much obliged for the fish," she turned round to say to
me again, as she went away.

One morning, not very long afterward, I asked Georgie if he could
possibly leave his business that afternoon, and he gravely answered me
that he could get away just as well as not, for the tide would not be
right for lobsters until after supper.

"I should like to go up and see your aunt," said I. "You know she
asked me to come the other day when she was here."

"I'd like to go," said Georgie sedately. "Father was going up this
week; but the mackerel struck in, and we couldn't leave. But it's
better'n six miles up there."

"That's not far," said I. "I'm going to have Captain Donnell's horse
and wagon;" and Georgie looked much interested.

I wondered