"

"Yes, for a while. We've locked up the offices and are going to forget
dull care together. He's devoted to this region, isn't he?"

"Yes, and what is more interesting and wonderful--to Sylvia," returned
Miss Martha, again dropping her voice as if there might be
eavesdroppers in Arcady. "That is, he must be. He has given her the
loveliest boat."

"I saw it the evening we came. Mr. Johnson was showing it to him."

"What did he say about its name?" eagerly.

"Its name?"

"Yes. The Rosy Cloud."

"Why,--nothing."

"Didn't Thinkright ask him anything?"

"Not that I remember."

"Has Judge Trent said anything to you about Sylvia?"

"Not a word."

Miss Lacey, who had been leaning forward, flung herself back in her
chair.

"If there's anything exasperating on earth it's a man!" she exclaimed.
"Well"--for John laughed, "excuse me, Mr. Dunham, you can't help it;
but men never know when anything is interesting. Now I can tell you
just where you'll find those girls, and I'm going to let you go. You
take that path through the woods, and it'll bring you into an open
field, but you'll still see a path. Keep right on till if you took
another step you'd fall about fifty feet and have to swim. There you'll
find a huddle of ledges and ravines and brave little firs that have
hooked their roots into the rock somehow, and there you'll find also a
couple of girls who went down to write letters, and I know haven't
written a word; and do keep an eye on your watch and get them here by
quarter past one. Things are so much nicer when they are hot and good,
and Edna is no more to be trusted than if she was five. If she happened
to get to watching a barnacle eat its dinner she'd never once think of
her own."

Just at present Miss Derwent was certainly not thinking of dinner. The
tide was falling, and she and her companion were seated amid the
sighing firs and watching its retreat; that is, Sylvia was watching,
and Edna was reading aloud to her. At last Edna looked up from her book
and leaned forward to look over the ledge.

"It is low enough," she said. "Let us go down there, Sylvia. I want to
show you the pools."

Leaving their books and papers covered from the breeze with a shawl,
the girls climbed down the rough rocks.

"We call this the giant's bath-tub," said Edna, when they reached an
oblong hollow rock brimming with brine.

"I'd hate to take a bath with some of those creatures," remarked
Sylvia, her eyes on certain