en lately. They're so still, I'm 'fraid there's some
mischief."

"Well, Ruey, you jist go and give a look at 'em," said Miss Roxy. "I
declare, that boy! I never know what he will do next; but there didn't
seem to be nothin' to get into out there but the sea, and the beach is
so shelving, a body can't well fall into that."

Alas! good Miss Roxy, the children are at this moment tilting up and
down on the waves, half a mile out to sea, as airily happy as the
sea-gulls; and little Moses now thinks, with glorious scorn, of you and
your press-board, as of grim shadows of restraint and bondage that shall
never darken his free life more.

Both Miss Roxy and Mrs. Pennel were, however, startled into a paroxysm
of alarm when poor Miss Ruey came screaming, as she entered the door,--

"As sure as you're alive, them chil'en are off in the boat,--they're out
to sea, sure as I'm alive! What shall we do? The boat'll upset, and the
sharks'll get 'em."

Miss Roxy ran to the window, and saw dancing and courtesying on the blue
waves the little pinnace, with its fanciful pink pennon fluttered gayly
by the indiscreet and flattering wind.

Poor Mrs. Pennel ran to the shore, and stretched her arms wildly, as if
she would have followed them across the treacherous blue floor that
heaved and sparkled between them.

"Oh, Mara, Mara! Oh, my poor little girl! Oh, poor children!"

"Well, if ever I see such a young un as that," soliloquized Miss Roxy
from the chamber-window; "there they be, dancin' and giggitin' about;
they'll have the boat upset in a minit, and the sharks are waitin' for
'em, no doubt. _I_ b'lieve that ar young un's helped by the Evil
One,--not a boat round, else I'd push off after 'em. Well, I don't see
but we must trust in the Lord,--there don't seem to be much else to
trust to," said the spinster, as she drew her head in grimly.

To say the truth, there was some reason for the terror of these most
fearful suggestions; for not far from the place where the children
embarked was Zephaniah's fish-drying ground, and multitudes of sharks
came up with every rising tide, allured by the offal that was here
constantly thrown into the sea. Two of these prowlers, outward-bound
from their quest, were even now assiduously attending the little boat,
and the children derived no small amusement from watching their motions
in the pellucid water,--the boy occasionally almost upsetting the boat
by valorous plunges at them with his stick. It