p as I ever seed, and well eddicated too. He ain't none of your
ordinary fishermen. Some of us kind of think he's a runaway--got into
some scrape or another, maybe, and is skulking around here to keep out
of jail. But wife here won't give in to that."

"No, I never will," said Mrs. Bentley firmly. "Young Si comes here
often for milk and butter, and he's a perfect gentleman. Nobody'll
ever convince me that he has done anything to be ashamed of,
whatever's his reason for wasting his life down there at that shore."

"He ain't wasting his life," chuckled Mr. Bentley. "He's making
money, Young Si is, though he don't seem to care about that a mite.
This has been a big year for mackerel, and he's smart. If he didn't
know much when he begun, he's ahead of Snuffy now. And as for work, I
never saw his beat. He seems possessed. Up afore sunrise every blessed
morning and never in bed till midnight, and just slaving away all
between time. I said to him t'other day, says I: 'Young Si, you'll
have to let up on this sort of thing and take a rest. You can't stand
it. You're not a Pointer. Pointers can stand anything, but it'll kill
you.'

"He give one of them bitter laughs of his. Says he: 'It's no
difference if it does. Nobody'll care,' and off he walks, sulky like.
There's something about Young Si I can't understand," concluded Mr.
Bentley.

Ethel Lennox was interested. A melancholy, mysterious hero in a
setting of silver-rimmed sand hills and wide blue sweeps of ocean was
something that ought to lend piquancy to her vacation.

"I should like to see this prince in disguise," she said. "It all
sounds very romantic."

"I'll take you to the shore after tea if you'd like," said Agnes
eagerly. "Si's just splendid," she continued in a confidential aside
as they rose from the table. "Pa doesn't half like him because he
thinks there's something queer about him. But I do. He's a gentleman,
as Ma says. I don't believe he's done anything wrong."

* * * * *

Ethel Lennox sauntered out into the orchard to wait for Agnes. She sat
down under an apple tree and began to read, but soon the book slipped
from her hands and the beautiful head leaned back against the grey,
lichened trunk of the old tree. The sweet mouth drooped wistfully.
There was a sad, far-away look in the violet eyes. The face was not
that of a happy girl, so thought Agnes as she came down the apple tree
avenue.

But how pretty she is! she tho