d his sister. "Miss Lothrop, I think this
place is a terrible desert!"

"Then we will not stay here any longer," said Lois. "I am very fond of
these little coves."

"No, no, I mean Appledore generally. It is the stupidest place I ever
was in in my life. There is nothing here."

Lois looked at the lady with an expression of wondering compassion.

"Your experience does not agree with that of Miss Caruthers?" said
Lenox.

"No," said Lois. "Let us take her to the place where you found me this
morning; maybe she would like that."

"We must go, I suppose," groaned Julia, as Mr. Lenox helped her up over
the rocks after the lighter-footed couple that preceded them. "George,
I believe you are in the way."

"Thanks!" said the young man, laughing. "But you will excuse me for
continuing to be in the way."

"I don't know--you see, it just sets Tom free to attend to her. Look at
him--picking those purple irises--as if iris did not grow anywhere
else! And now elderberry blossoms! And he will give her lessons in
botany, I shouldn't wonder. O, Tom's a goose!"

"That disease is helpless," said Lenox, laughing again.

"But George, it is madness!"

Mr. Lenox's laugh rang out heartily at this. His sovereign mistress was
not altogether pleased.

"I do certainly consider--and so do you,--I do certainly consider
unequal marriages to be a great misfortune to all concerned."

"Certainly--inequalities that cannot be made up. For instance, too tall
and too short do not match well together. Or for the lady to be rich
and the man to be poor; that is perilous."

"Nonsense, George! don't be ridiculous! Height is nothing, and money is
nothing; but family--and breeding--and habits--"

"What is her family?" asked Mr. Lenox, pursing up his lips as if for a
whistle.

"No family at all. Just country people, living at Shampuashuh."

"Don't you know, the English middle class is the finest in the world?"

"No! no better than ours."

"My dear, we have no middle class."

"But what about the English middle class? why do you bring it up?"

"It owes its great qualities to its having the mixed blood of the
higher and the lower."

"Ridiculous! What is that to us, if we have no middle class? But don't
you _see_, George, what an unhappy thing it would be for Tom to marry
this girl?"

Mr. Lenox whistled slightly, smiled, and pulled a purple iris blossom
from a tuft growing in a little spot of wet ground. He offered it to
his disturbed comp