on the very brink of the bottomless pit."

He is certainly off his balance, thought Katherine. He must be some
revivalist who has gone insane on one point. I suppose I'd better go
in. He looks quite capable of wading out here after me if I don't.

She picked her steps carefully back with her precious specimens. The
stranger eyed her severely as she stepped on the rocks.

"I should think you would have more sense than to risk your life in
that fashion for a handful of seaweeds," he said.

"I haven't the faintest idea what you mean," said Miss Rangely. "You
don't look crazy, but you talk as if you were."

"Do you mean to say you don't know that what the people hereabouts
call the Bottomless Pit is situated right off that point--the most
dangerous spot along the whole coast?"

"No, I didn't," said Katherine, horrified. She remembered now that
Aunt Elizabeth had warned her to be careful of some bad hole along
shore, but she had not been paying much attention and had supposed it
to be in quite another direction. "I am a stranger here."

"Well, I hardly thought you'd be foolish enough to be out there if you
knew," said the other in mollified accents. "The place ought not to be
left without warning, anyhow. It is the most careless thing I ever
heard of. There is a big hole right off that point and nobody has ever
been able to find the bottom of it. A person who got into it would
never be heard of again. The rocks there form an eddy that sucks
everything right down."

"I am very grateful to you for calling me in," said Katherine humbly.
"I had no idea I was in such danger."

"You have a very fine bunch of seaweeds, I see," said the unknown.

But Katherine was in no mood to converse on seaweeds. She suddenly
realized what she must look like--bare feet, draggled skirts, dripping
arms. And this creature whom she had taken for a lunatic was
undoubtedly a gentleman. Oh, if he would only go and give her a chance
to put on her shoes and stockings!

Nothing seemed further from his intentions. When Katherine had picked
up the aforesaid articles and turned homeward, he walked beside her,
still discoursing on seaweeds as eloquently as if he were commonly
accustomed to walking with barefooted young women. In spite of
herself, Katherine couldn't help listening to him, for he managed to
invest seaweeds with an absorbing interest. She finally decided that
as he didn't seem to mind her bare feet, she wouldn't either.

He knew s