r years--a mort of seaweed and pulp."

"What _do_ you mean, Uncle Amazon?" gasped the girl, shocked by his
words.

"This," the master mariner said, with a wide sweep of his arm taking in
the cluttered store. "This was Abe's Sargasso Sea--and it come nigh to
smotherin' him and bearin' him down by the head."

"Oh! you mean his life was so confined here?"

Cap'n Amazon nodded, "I wonder he bore it so long."

"I am afraid Uncle Abram is getting all he wants of adventure now,"
Louise said doubtfully.

Cap'n Amazon stared at her unwinkingly for a minute. Then all he said
was:

"I wonder?"

CHAPTER XXV

AUNT EUPHEMIA MAKES A POINT

Lawford Tapp did not appear at the store and Louise continued to wonder
about it; but she shrank from asking Betty Gallup, who might have been
able to inform her why the young man did not come again. However, on
one bright morning the gray roadster stopped before the door and
Louise, from her window, saw that the three Tapp girls were in the car.

She thought they had come to make purchases, for the store on the Shell
Road was often a port of call for the automobiles of the summer
colonists. Suddenly, however, she realized that L'Enfant Terrible was
standing up in the driver's seat and beckoning to her.

"Oh, Miss Grayling!" shrilled Cecile. "May I come up? I want to speak
to you."

"No," commanded Prue firmly, preparing to step out of the car. "I will
speak to Miss Grayling myself."

"I don't see why she can't come down," drawled Marian, the languid.
"_I_ have a message for her."

"Why!" ejaculated the surprised Louise, "if you all wish to see me I'd
better come down, hadn't I?" and she left the window at once.

She had remarked on the few occasions during the last few days that she
had met the Tapp sisters on the beach, that they had seemed desirous of
being polite to her--very different from their original attitude; but
so greatly taken up had Louise's mind been with more important matters
that she had really considered this change but little.

Therefore it was with some curiosity that she descended the stairs and
went around by the yard gate to the side of the automobile.

"Dear Miss Grayling," drawled Marian, putting out a gloved hand.
"Pardon the informality. But mother wants to know if you will help us
pour tea at our lawn fete and dance Friday week? It would be so nice
of you."

Louise smiled quietly. But she was not a stickler for social
proprieties