ood there on the wet gravel
of the cove; but her face lost brightness for a moment, as Lois
discerned Tom's head above the herbs and grasses that bordered the bank
above the cove. Julia saw the change, and then the cause of it.

"Tom!" said she, "what brought you here?"

"What brought you, I suppose," said Mr. Tom, springing down the bank.
"Miss Lothrop, what can you be doing?" Passing his sister he went to
the other girl's side. And now there were _two_ searching and peering
into the mud and gravel which the tide had left wet and bare; and Miss
Caruthers, sitting on a rock a little above them, looked on; much
marvelling at the follies men will be guilty of when a pretty face
draws them on.

"Tom--Tom!--what do you expect to find?" she cried after awhile. But
Tom was too busy to heed her. And then appeared Mr. Lenox upon the
scene.

"You too!" said Miss Caruthers. "Now you have only to go down into the
mud like the others and complete the situation. Look at Tom! Poking
about to see if he can find a whole snail shell in the wet stuff there.
Look at him! George, a brother is the most vexatious thing to take care
of in the world. Look at Tom!"

Mr. Lenox did, with an amused expression of feature.

"Bad job, Julia," he said.

"It is in one way, but it isn't in another, for I am not going to be
baffled. He shall not make a fool of himself with that girl."

"She isn't a fool."

"What then?" said Julia sharply.

"Nothing. I was only thinking of the materials upon which your judgment
is made up."

"Materials!" echoed Julia. "Yours is made up upon a nice complexion.
That bewilders all men's faculties. Do _you_ think she is very pretty,
George?"

Mr. Lenox had no time to answer, for Lois, and of course Tom, at this
moment left the cove bottom and came towards them. Lois was beaming,
like a child, with such bright, pure pleasure; and coming up, showed
upon her open palm a very delicate little white shell, not a snail
shell by any means. "I have found that!" she proclaimed.

"What is that?" said Julia disdainfully, though not with rudeness.

"You see. Isn't it beautiful? And isn't it wonderful that it should not
be broken? If you think of the power of the waves here, that have beat
to pieces almost everything--rolled and ground and crushed everything
that would break--and this delicate little thing has lived through it."

"There is a power of life in some delicate things," said Tom.

"Power of fiddlestick!" sai