ietors gossip across, and the men too when they come down from
business every evening, or from Saturday till Monday. My lot is
generally the shorter allowance, and one Sunday afternoon I lay in my
favorite hammock on the north side of the veranda, sleeping the sleep of
the brain-tired editor, till voices roused me.

"Mary, where did you get that new tennis racket?"

"Mr. Todd gave it to me."

"Haven't I told you distinctly that you were not even to take candy from
Mr. Todd?"

"He gives things to you and Chrissie."

"That's a very different matter. Chrissie is a child, and he is an old
friend of the family."

"I can't help it if he likes to give me presents."

"You can help taking them, especially from an engaged man."

"I don't care if he is engaged. He says he don't care anything at all
about Miss Martin. He only went after her for her money. He likes me
best, and he says he'll never marry her."

"Mary! I should think you'd know better than to make yourself so cheap.
You give Mr. Todd back that racket right away, and tell him Mrs. Gemmell
said you were not to keep it, and the next time he brings you down
flowers or chocolates you do the same."

If I had not known the sex and the approximate age of Mary, I should
have thought it was a small boy in a temper who stamped off the veranda.

The next Saturday night the full moon was assisted in her duties by a
large bonfire down on our beach. The Adamless Eden, having received its
"week-end" male contingent, was stimulated to a corn-roasting. The green
ears, stuck on the ends of long sticks, were held by girls and men over
the fire till roasted, and then passed on to a row of matrons, disguised
in large aprons, who salted and buttered them ready for eating. If you
know anything that tastes sweeter than a freshly roasted and buttered
ear of Indian corn, your experience is broader than mine.

Using my eyes habitually in the way of business, I could not avoid
noticing that Lincoln Todd was not collecting his share of driftwood for
keeping up the fire, nor did I see Mary Mason's pretty face in the
garland of beauties bending with eager interest over the poles bayoneted
with cobs of corn. It may have been fear of spoiling her complexion that
kept her at one side whispering with Link, but it served them both right
that Dolly Martin should choose that very moment for her stage entrance.
She and her mother joined the group of butterers, and I noticed that
Mrs. Martin re