embroidery, in which the needle yet
hanging showed that the work was in progress.

By a table at the sea-looking window sits our little Mara, now grown to
the maturity of eighteen summers, but retaining still unmistakable signs
of identity with the little golden-haired, dreamy, excitable, fanciful
"Pearl" of Orr's _Island_.

She is not quite of a middle height, with something beautiful and
child-like about the moulding of her delicate form. We still see those
sad, wistful, hazel eyes, over which the lids droop with a dreamy
languor, and whose dark lustre contrasts singularly with the golden hue
of the abundant hair which waves in a thousand rippling undulations
around her face. The impression she produces is not that of paleness,
though there is no color in her cheek; but her complexion has everywhere
that delicate pink tinting which one sees in healthy infants, and with
the least emotion brightens into a fluttering bloom. Such a bloom is on
her cheek at this moment, as she is working away, copying a bunch of
scarlet rock-columbine which is in a wine-glass of water before her;
every few moments stopping and holding her work at a distance, to
contemplate its effect. At this moment there steps behind her chair a
tall, lithe figure, a face with a rich Spanish complexion, large black
eyes, glowing cheeks, marked eyebrows, and lustrous black hair arranged
in shining braids around her head. It is our old friend, Sally
Kittridge, whom common fame calls the handsomest girl of all the region
round Harpswell, Maquoit, and Orr's Island. In truth, a wholesome,
ruddy, blooming creature she was, the sight of whom cheered and warmed
one like a good fire in December; and she seemed to have enough and to
spare of the warmest gifts of vitality and joyous animal life. She had a
well-formed mouth, but rather large, and a frank laugh which showed all
her teeth sound--and a fortunate sight it was, considering that they
were white and even as pearls; and the hand that she laid upon Mara's at
this moment, though twice as large as that of the little artist, was yet
in harmony with her vigorous, finely developed figure.

"Mara Lincoln," she said, "you are a witch, a perfect little witch, at
painting. How you can make things look so like, I don't see. Now, I
could paint the things we painted at Miss Plucher's; but then, dear me!
they didn't look at all like flowers. One needed to write under them
what they were made for."

"Does this look lik