father is away I feel more deeply my responsibility in this
matter. You are a wayward girl--you always have been."

"You don't expect me to agree with you on that point, do you, auntie?"
Louise asked sweetly.

Mrs. Conroth ignored the retort, continuing: "I am not amazed, after
seeing your surroundings at the Silt place, that you should become
familiar with these common longshore characters. But this that I have
just learned--only this forenoon in fact--astonishes me beyond measure;
it does, indeed!"

"Let me be astonished, too, auntie. I love a surprise," drawled her
niece.

"Where were you yesterday?" demanded Aunt Euphemia sharply.

Louise at once thought she knew what was coming. She smiled as she
replied: "Out fishing."

"And with whom, may I ask?"

"With Betty Gallup, Uncle Abram's housekeeper."

"But the man?"

"Oh! Mr. Tapp, you mean? A very pleasant young man, auntie."

"That is what I was told, Louise," her aunt said mournfully. "With
young Tapp. And you have been seen with him frequently. It is being
remarked by the whole colony. Of course, you can mean nothing by this
intimacy. It arises from your thoughtlessness, I presume. You must
understand that he is not--er----Well, the Tapps are not of our set,
Louise."

"My goodness, no!" laughed the girl cheerfully. "The Tapps are real
Cape Codders, I believe."

Aunt Euphemia raised her eyebrows and her lorgnette together. "I do
not understand you, I fear. What the Tapps are by blood, I do not
know. But they are not in society at all--not at all!"

"Not in society?" repeated Louise, puzzled indeed.

"Scarcely. Of course, as Mrs. Perriton says, the way the cottagers are
situated here at The Beaches, the Tapps _must_ be treated with a
certain friendliness. That quite impossible 'I. Tapp,' as he
advertises himself, owns all the Point and might easily make it very
disagreeable for the rest of the colony if he so chose."

She stopped because of the expression on her niece's countenance.

"What _do_ you mean?" Louise asked. "Who--who are these Tapps?"

"My dear child! Didn't you know? Was I blaming you for a fault of
which you were not intentionally guilty? See how wrong you are to go
unwarned and unaccompanied to strange places and into strange company.
I thought you were merely having a mild flirtation with that young man
in the full light of understanding."

Louise controlled her voice and her countenance with an effort. "Te