d see a spangled expanse of ocean dazzled the eye
and the tiny salt creeks that meandered across the meadows were like
winding ribbons of blue. Certainly it was no weather to be shut up in
school and boys and girls went hither with reluctant feet, checking
off the days on their fingers and even counting the hours that must
drag by before they would be free to roam at will amid this panorama
of beauty.

To Walter King it seemed as if the closing period of his captivity
would never be at an end. He studied rebelliously, and with only a
half--nay, rather a quarter--of his mind on his lessons. All his
thought was centered around Surfside and the novel experiences that
beckoned him there. So impatient was he to begin his new duties that
he found it impossible to settle down to anything.

"You'll be failing in your last examinations, Walter, if you don't
watch what you're doing," cautioned his mother. "And should you do
that, little profit would it be that you are hired out to Mr.
Crowninshield for the summer. In the fall you'd have to stay behind
your class, and think of the disgrace of that! Why, I'd be ready to
hide my head with shame! Money or no money, you must buck up and put
the Crowninshields and their doings out of your head. To lose a year
now would mean just that much longer before you could graduate and
take a regular job. I almost wish Jerry Thomas had never asked you to
come up there, I do indeed."

"Oh, don't go getting all fussed up, Ma," returned His Highness,
irritated because he recognized the truth of his mother's words. "I'm
going to buckle down until the term is over, honest I am. It is hard,
though, with the weather so fine. It seems as if I must be out. It's
like being on a leash."

"You're thinking of those dogs again!"

The lad flushed sheepishly.

"No, I wasn't."

"But you were--whether you realized it or not. It is all you talk of
nowadays--_dogs_! What it will be after they get here and you're up at
Surfside living with them I don't know. Whatever else you do, though,
you must not fail in your lessons and at the last moment spoil your
whole year's record. School is your first duty now and you have no
moral right to put anything else in its place."

"I know it, Ma," Walter agreed.

"Of course you know it," was the tart response. "Just see that you do
not forget it, that's all."

With this final admonition Mrs. King whisked about and taking up her
cake of Sapolio and pail of steaming w